Detour: Martin M. Goldsmith

I believe I first heard of this book at the crime segments blog in 2016. I purchased the book in the next month or so, but it took me until now to read and review it (and watch the film adaptation). Detour is a very short novel about a man hitchhiking across the United States, whose life takes a major detour as a result of his trip, thus the title.

The story starts in the middle of the trip. Alex Roth, a violinist who at one time had hopes of being a classical musician, has left New York to join his girlfriend in Los Angeles, and has made it as far as New Mexico. He has no money and hasn't eaten for a while, but he lucks into a ride with a man who is going all the way to Los Angeles. Things go wrong very quickly.

Then the narrator switches to Sue Harvey, the girlfriend. Alex has painted an idealized version of her, even though she left him a week before their wedding to go to California to try to make it big in Hollywood. As she tells her story since arriving in Los Angeles, we see that she is not who Alex thinks she is. 

I loved the switching back and forth of narrators. It is not overdone but it gets across the two versions of reality that Alex and Sue have. When I was reading the first section narrated by Alex, I thought the story was so-so, but when we get to Sue's version of their relationship and her ambitions, the story gets much more interesting. Eventually, Alex gets involved with Vera, a woman who is also hitchhiking to Los Angeles. She is a real piece of work.

Detour was published in 1939, and made into a noir film starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage in 1945. Martin M. Goldsmith wrote the screenplay, but the director, Edgar G. Ulmer, cut the story down to only 65 minutes (per this article at Combustible Celluloid). I liked the book much more than the movie, but I think you have to look at them as being in two different universes. I like the dimension that Sue adds to the story in the book, and she barely shows up in the film. But the film presents a very effective story, Ann Savage is exceptional in the role of Vera. 

Resources:

• Lost Classics of Noir: Detour by Martin M. Goldsmith at Criminal Elements.
• Review at His Futile Preoccupations...
• TIME put Detour on their list of the 100 greatest films made since 1923.

  -----------------------------

Publisher:  Black Curtain Press, 2013 (orig. pub. 1939).

Length:     145 pages

Format:     Trade Paperback

Setting:     USA

Genre:      Mystery, Noir

Source:     I purchased this book.

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Authors that I have read at least 10 books by

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic is a Freebie, and we can come up with our own topic. I am actually returning to an earlier topic, Authors I've Read the Most Books By. My version will be my Top Ten Authors that I have read at least 10 books by. Keep in mind that I only have records for the last 19 years. But that works fine because these are my current top ten authors, and tastes change over time.

And here's my list:

Rex Stout (54 - 47 Nero Wolfe books plus 3 Tecumseh Fox books plus 4 standalone mysteries)

The Nero Wolfe series began in 1934 with Fer-de-Lance; the last book in the series, A Family Affair, was published in 1975, shortly before Stout's death. I have reread every book in the series several times over the decades.

Nero Wolfe is a lover of orchids and fine food, who supports himself as a private detective, charging exorbitant fees. Archie Goodwin, the narrator of the stories, is both his assistant and a private investigator, and he does most of the legwork. The series combines a genius armchair detective with a hard-boiled detective, and you get the best of both worlds.

Agatha Christie (28 plus)

I love both of Agatha Christie's main sleuths: Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Originally I was irritated by Poirot's self-importance and conceit, but now I find him very charming. And I especially enjoy the books that Hastings narrates. I have other favorite characters that show up in more than one book (Colonel Race, Inspector Japp, Superintendent Battle). And all of the standalone books that I have read so far have been very good.

Emma Lathen (23 plus 4 as R.B. Dominic)

John Putnam Thatcher, senior vice president and director of the trust department of Sloan Guaranty Trust on Wall Street, is the protagonist of Lathen's 24 book series. Banking on Death (1961) is the first in the series, and I reread it in 2017 because the story is set around Christmas. Most of the books are focused on one type of business that is using the services of the Sloan, and the story shares many facts about the running of the specific types of businesses, and the financial relationships. Emma Lathen is the pen name for two American authors: Martha Henissart and Mary Jane Latsis.

Margery Allingham (18)

I think I have only read books from the Albert Campion series. Allingham has a beautiful way of telling a story and creating interesting characters. Albert Campion is a wonderful character, of course, but there is also Albert's manservant, Magersfontein Lugg, a former burglar who has done prison time and has criminal contacts. Campion ages as the series goes on and the character changes over time. And the female characters are well done, intelligent, strong, and independent.

Len Deighton (15)

Now we get to one of my favorite spy fiction authors. I have read all nine of the Bernard Samson series, plus Winter, a historical novel which features characters from the Samson series. He is probably best known for his Nameless Spy series. I have read four of those and I like them, but they are not my favorites of his books. And the great thing about him is I still have at least ten books of his to read.

Jill McGown - 13

Jill McGown wrote 13 novels in the Chief Inspector Lloyd and Sergeant Judy Hill series, plus five standalone novels. I have only read the books in the series, and I read them all in 2007. The books do not follow a formula. Lloyd and Hill, and their ongoing relationship, are the mainstays of the series, but each book takes a different approach to telling the story.

S. J. Rozan - 12

I was very excited when S.J. Rozan published the 12th book in the Lydia Chin / Bill Smith mystery series last year. That is one my favorite contemporary mystery series and the previous book was published in 2011. Bill Smith is a white private investigator in his forties who lives in Manhattan; Lydia Chin is an American-born Chinese private investigator in her late twenties who lives in New York’s Chinatown with her mother.  They are not partners but they often work together on cases. The element that I have always liked about this series is that the narrator of the books alternates. The first book was narrated by Lydia; the second book was narrated by Bill; and so on. With that approach, each book reveals more about the personality and the backstory of the two protagonists.

Olen Steinhauer - 11

Another of my favorite spy fiction authors. Steinhauer has written twelve full-length novels and I have read all but one of them. His first five novels were historical novels (the Yalta Boulevard series set in a fictional Eastern bloc country) and not strictly spy fiction but there were some espionage elements. After that he began the Milo Weaver series. Weaver is in the CIA; in the first book he is in the "Tourist" division, a group that does dirty work for the CIA.

Peter Dickinson - 10

Peter Dickinson has written over fifty books for adults and children. Many of his books for adults are mysteries. My favorite book by Dickinson is King & Joker, an alternate history set in an England where George V's elder brother did not die but lived to become King Victor I, and is later succeeded by his grandson, King Victor II. I am also very fond of his unusual mystery series featuring Superintendent Jimmy Pibble. 

Charles McCarry - 10

I discovered the spy novels by Charles McCarry in 2009 and read them all in a few months (including the two political thrillers that are only peripherally related). Most of the novels written by Charles McCarry are about Paul Christopher, an intelligence agent for the CIA (called "the Outfit" in his books). Some of them go back and forth between events around the World War II years and the 1960's, exploring Christopher's youth and family history. Those nine books were written between 1971 and 2007. McCarry also published The Shanghai Factor in 2013 and The Mulberry Bush in 2015.

Other authors I have read a good number of books by...

Bill Pronzini - 25
Ruth Rendell - 25

Jane Haddam - 24

Robert Barnard - 22

Patricia Moyes - 19

Ngaio Marsh - 16

P. D. James - 16

Plants in the back area

A few weeks ago, I featured photos from our outings to the plant nursery.

Since then we have been working on weeding and potting and clearing out stuff. This is one side of the yard before we cleaned up. A lots of weeds, the lemon tree, a perpetually overgrown escallonia bush by the fence, a pot of geraniums and a sage plant, hidden in the overgrowth. On the other side it was all weeds.

Plants we had gotten from the nursery...

After some weeding and some potting, that side looks better:

The geranium and the sage, which is taller now:

Rosie the cat looks over the work as it progresses. 

We are experimenting with begonias, which mostly like shade. At certain times of the year we have nothing but shade but in the summer much of the back area is in full sun most of the day.

So most the rest of what we have bought need full sun or can deal with it. We are planning on mostly plants that attract butterflies or hummingbirds. And succulents.

Cuphea, which is the chief hummingbird attraction.

Agastache

Upright Verbena, loved by bees and butterflies.

Succulents

More succulents.

Geraniums, still my favorite.

Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times No. 17

I am participating in the Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times meme, hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness. This week I am featuring books on one of my husband's shelves in the glass front bookcase we share. 

If you click on the image of the shelf, you will be able to read more of the titles.

Topping the stack are the three books in The Last Policeman Trilogy. This series follows the activities of policeman Hank Palace in a pre-apocalyptic world. An asteroid is headed for earth, and from the beginning of the series the reader knows that it will be devastating. In the first book, The Last Policeman, Hank was still a detective with the police force, new to the job, and motivated to continue investigating cases. Three months later, in Countdown City, like almost everyone else on earth, he had no job and no prospects, but he took a case for an old friend.  In the final book, World of Trouble, Hank goes on an odyssey to try to locate his sister before the asteroid hits.

Next is Malice by Keigo Higashino. Higashino is the author of the Detective Galileo Series, featuring Manabu Yukawa (“Detective Galileo”), a brilliant physics professor, and police detective Kusanagi, set in Tokyo, Japan. I have read two in that series.

However, I have not read Malice, a book in Higashino's Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga series. But now my husband's review at Goodreads reminds that I need to get to reading it very soon.


Here is the text of his review:

Malice is another meticulously plotted mystery/procedural from Keigo Higashino, author of incredibly clever The Devotion of Suspect X. This relatively brief book doesn’t waste time in getting the plot going (the murder on which everything hinges happens almost immediately) and also efficiently introduces the characters (of which there are really only five: police detective Kaga, writer friends Hidaka and Nonoguchi, and Hidaka’s two wives (one is deceased). Each first person section is an interview or account or interrogation or confession and at times it can be a bit confusing. The book has virtually no action with clever detective Kaga assembling and reassembling motives and alibis in an effort to ascertain the why of the crime. Well done.

The four books at the bottom of the stack are all from the Sweeney St. George series by Sarah Stewart Taylor

• O' Artful Death (2003) [set in Vermont]
• Mansions of the Dead (2004) [set in Boston, Massachusetts and Rhode Island]
• Judgment of the Grave (2005) [set in Concord, Massachusetts]
• Still As Death (2006) [set in Cambridge, Massachusetts]

I read the first three books in 2006, so my husband must have read them around the same time. Per the author's website: "The series features a young art historian who specializes in gravestone and funerary art -- the art of death." The entire series is summarized at the website. This was the perfect series for my husband, who is very interested in gravestones and cemeteries.

For those of you who like mysteries set at Christmas, the first in that series is set around Christmas. I had forgotten that and honestly don't remember how much that enters into the plot. See a review of O' Artful Death at Carstairs Considers.

Sarah Stewart Taylor has come out with a new book, The Mountains Wild. Maggie D'arcy is a homicide detective on Long Island, divorced with a teenage daughter. She travels to Ireland to follow up on the disappearance of a friend that happened over tweny years ago. My husband has purchased a copy. Reviewed at Lesa's Book Critiques.

Bleak House: Charles Dickens

I feel ambivalent about this novel. I enjoyed reading much of it, but it was a difficult read, and seemed too long. It was first published in 20 monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853, which was probably an enjoyable way to read it, but how did readers of the time keep up with all the characters? It took me nearly three weeks to read, although I did read other books at the same time, unusual for me.

The story centers around a case in the Court of Chancery, Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The case has something to do with the resolution of conflicting wills, which I never truly understood, and the case has been in the court for many years. John Jarndyce of Bleak House takes on the custody of two wards, Richard Carstone and Ada Clare, who are distant cousins and beneficiaries in one of the wills. At the same time he becomes guardian to Esther Summerson, an orphan who becomes Ada's companion.

The story is told alternately by Esther in first person, and by an omniscient narrator.  In addition to following the characters living at Bleak House, there are other important plots and many of them tie together later in the book. One features Sir Leicester Dedlock and his wife Honoria. Lady Dedlock has a secret she wants to keep from her husband at all costs, and the evil lawyer Mr. Tulkington is determined to find out what that secret is. Another subplot I enjoyed involved the Jellyby family. Mrs. Jellyby is a philanthropist who spends all of her time gathering funds to set up a mission in Africa, while ignoring and neglecting the needs of her own family. Her eldest daughter, Caddy, serves as her secretary (unwillingly) and becomes a good friend of Esther.

There is a murder mystery within this long novel. I knew that before I started reading it, but I had expected it to play a small role. In fact, it is an interesting and engaging part of the story, and the detective, Inspector Bucket, is a very good character.

I have complained about the confusion of too many characters in other books, but this book overflows with characters. On the Wikipedia page there are two lists of characters, with 21 major characters and about 40 minor characters. I highly recommend the Wikipedia page for a description of the characters, but I would avoid reading the synopsis of the story before reading the book, because it starts out with a big plot spoiler.

As I mentioned previously, I had difficulty reading this book. But I did not want to take a year to finish it like I did with Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. I preferred the chapters told by Esther; they had more focus and initially they were more interesting. So I would pace my reading by reading up to a point where Esther's narration starts again. There was a point where I was having difficulty reading more than one chapter a day, but that only lasted a few days, fortunately. And then towards the end, I wanted to keep reading along because I wanted to know the ending, how it all turns out.

I would like to share Colin Dexter's thoughts on this book from an article at the The Guardian. The story of how he came to read Bleak House for the first time is very entertaining, so I recommend reading the entire article.

I have since religiously read the novel from beginning to end three times, and with ever-increasing delight and understanding. It was, and is, the greatest novel of the lot. Why? First, the quality of the writing; second, the complexity of the plot; third, the extraordinary insight and honesty of the characterisation.

Here are reviews at other blogs to check out:

• WHATMEREAD
• Brona's Books
• Editor Eric's The Greatest Literature of All Time
• NancyElin
• Carole's Notebook

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Publisher:  Vintage Books, 2012 (orig. pub. 1853).
Length:     866 pages
Format:     Trade Paperback
Setting:     England
Genre:      Fiction, Classic
Source:     I purchased this book.

The Awkward Squad: Sophie Hénaff

A police detective, Anne Capestan, has been suspended for six months and expects her superior, Buron, to end her employment. Instead he gives her a new department made up of misfits and rejects from other areas, and provides little in the way of supplies. They don't even have a siren for the car allotted to them. The event that caused Capestan's suspension was related to excessive force on the job, leading to a death; thus she cannot carry a firearm.

This is Sophie Hénaff's first crime fiction novel. Originally published in France in 2015, it was translated to English in 2017. The premise is similar to The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen (set in Denmark), with a much larger cast. This novel is set in France, and it is more humorous in tone.

Capestan's group is given all the cold cases for the region, and her superiors don't expect them to be solved. Some examples of her new squad are: Lieutenant José Torrez, known as Malchance, whose last few partners have all been injured or died while working with him; Commandant Louis-Baptiste Lebreton, formerly of internal affairs; Capitaine Eva Rosière, author of detective novels which have been developed into a TV show; Capitaine Merlot, an alcoholic; and Lieutenant Évrard, a compulsive gambler. In the boxes of case files that they are allowed to work on they find two unsolved murders.

There are amusing scenes, as the members of the new group learn to work with each other and they set up their new location. The group has not been given real offices, but a spacious apartment in a building where no one will see them. Setting up the apartment, complete with wallpaper and comfortable sofas, is handled with humor. Each person in the group brings unique characteristics even though they have not worked out well in other departments. Sometimes these are comical or disagreeable characteristics but somehow they pull together and use their skills to support the cases they work on.

However, with all the humor, the cases are taken seriously, and most of the detectives assigned to the squad are eager to do well in this job in hopes of getting back to their old jobs. The story is paced well, and there are twists and turns along the way. My husband bought this book and loaned it to me after he read it; we both enjoyed it and plan on reading the second book in the series, Stick Together.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   MacLehose Press, 2018 (orig. pub. 2015)

Translated from the French by Sam Gordon

Length:      260 pages

Format:      Hardcover

Series:       Awkward Squad #1

Setting:     France

Genre:       Police procedural

Source:     Borrowed from my husband.