Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street

Up to this point in my blog, I have not published a post on Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, my favorite fictional detectives, although I have mentioned that Rex Stout is my favorite mystery author.

In 1969, William S. Baring-Gould published Nero Wolfe of West Thirty-fifth Street: The Life and Times of America's Largest Private Detective, a fictional biography of Rex Stout's detective character Nero Wolfe.

A few years ago, I purchased a paperback copy of this book at a used book store. I just read it this week. (I may have owned it years ago, and even read it. Who knows? A lot of Rex Stout books have been owned and passed on to other readers over the years.)

It was fun to read. There was a lot of minutiae that I really don't care about, although it was interesting to see the many discrepancies between various books in the series (although that happens with most series of this length). I enjoyed more the overview of all the cases up to the point that the book was published. I once read the biography of Rex Stout by John McAleer (Rex Stout: A Biography). Every novel and novella was listed there, and when he wrote it, and where it was first published. I stopped when I got to each of them, so that I could read them before the mention of the next one. It was the first time I had read them in order published. That book had 532 pages. This one is much shorter, a mere 177 pages.

I was surprised to read the chapters with  Baring-Gould's theories about how Wolfe might be the illegitimate son of Sherlock Holmes, Wolfe and Marko Vukcic might be brothers, and Archie could be Wolfe's nephew.

I also have a book of commentary on the Nero Wolfe series called At Wolfe's Door, by J. Kenneth Van Dover. To this point I have used it mainly as a reference when checking out my memory on one of the books in the series, but it has several chapters at the end that could be interesting, one comparing Nero Wolfe and Perry Mason. And it has plot synopses, character lists, etc. for other mysteries by Stout that did not feature Nero Wolfe.

The Wolfe Pack website devoted to Nero Wolfe has a list of these and other reference sources: "Biographies of Rex Stout/Commentaries on Nero Wolfe".

This counts as one of my books for the following challenges:
Mt. TBR Challenge
Read Your Own Books Challenge
A-Z Challenge
Spring Reading Challenge

The Light of Day: Eric Ambler

From the summary at Goodreads:

"When Arthur Abdel Simpson first spots Harper in the Athens airport, he recognizes him as a tourist unfamiliar with city and in need of a private driver. In other words, the perfect mark for Simpson’s brand of entrepreneurship. But Harper proves to be more the spider than the fly when he catches Simpson riffling his wallet for traveler’s checks."

The narrator of this book, Arthur Simpson, is a thief and a con-man. He isn't as smart as he thinks he is, and ends up being forced to cooperate with a man he had hoped to steal from. While working for him, Arthur is arrested for smuggling at the Turkish border, and then ends up cooperating with the Turkish authorities to infiltrate the band of "criminals" he is working with. And throughout it all he whines and complains about how nothing is his fault.

Opening lines of the book:

It came down to this: if I had not been arrested by the Turkish police, I would have been arrested by the Greek police. I had no choice but to do as this man Harper told me. He was entirely responsible for what happened to me.

Yet Arthur is very likeable and entertaining.  He goes into details of his English education, and relates how his childhood and his school experiences affected his later behavior and decisions. And in doing so, he reveals much about his character...

While Arthur is a very complex character, the rest of the group he is working with are not as well depicted.  There is a beautiful young woman (Elizabeth Lipp, the mastermind of the group), and several other men are co-conspirators. They all have important parts to play, but are not very interesting as characters. Arthur carries the book.

The Light of Day was the winner of the Best Mystery Edgar in 1964.  It was also made into a movie, Topkapi,  in 1964. I have watched that movie many times. The movie does differ from the book substantially, but knowing the gist of the story did affect my enjoyment of the book. If you have a choice, read the book first. The movie is great, although it feels dated now, but the book is better.

Jules Dassin directed the movie and the role of Elizabeth Lipp was played by Melina Mercouri.  Peter Ustinov won an Oscar for Supporting Actor for the role of Arthur. Maximilian Schell and Robert Morley also starred. In the movie, Arthur is very much the same kind of person, a bumbler and dishonest, but the movie does not give us as much depth as you get with the first person narration of a book. One major difference between the book and the movie is that the other characters are much more fleshed out. As this in-depth review says: "The Light of Day was narrated by Arthur Simpson, but Topkapi is Elizabeth Lipp’s story."

I recently read The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler, and The Light of Day is more to my taste. I plan to read more books by Ambler, and I was pleasantly surprised today to find that I have two additional books that were lost in my TBR boxes. I knew I had Journey into Fear (part of a three book omnibus), but now I find that I have Epitaph for a Spy and Judgment on Deltchev. So I am set for a while.  Also ordering Background to Danger (US title for Uncommon Danger) soon.

This counts as one of my books for the following challenges:
Mt. TBR Challenge
Read Your Own Books Challenge
A-Z Challenge
European Reading Challenge
Mystery & Suspense Reading Challenge  

B is for Robert Barnard

Today I participate again in the Crime Fiction Alphabet community meme for the letter B. Please visit the post at Mysteries in Paradise to check out other B entries.

At Martin Edwards' blog, he mentions that three fine crime writers were all born in 1936: Peter Lovesey, Reginald Hill, and Robert Barnard. I have read several books by Lovesey, and plan to read more. Reginald Hill is definitely one of my favorite authors, although I still have many of his books to read. But it is Robert Barnard that I want to discuss here. (Link to Edwards' post)

I have mentioned in earlier posts that I have long been a fan of Robert Barnard. His books are quirky, often have interesting twists, and are generally considered in the cozy sub-genre. So they have bite but they are not violent or gritty. If you haven't given this author I try, I highly recommend that you do.

Barnard was honored with the 2003 Cartier Diamond Dagger Award, presented for a lifetime of achievement. A few other of the authors so honored are: Eric Ambler (the first recipient in 1986), P. D. James, John Le Carre, Ed McBain, Reginald Hill, Peter Lovesey, Lawrence Block, and Andrew Taylor.

This is a summary from the page for the award at the Crime Writer's Association site.

"He is a writer of great versatility, from the light and satirical tone of his earlier books to the more psychological preoccupations of recent ones, such as A Fatal Attachment. Under the name of Bernard Bastable he has also written novels featuring Mozart as a detective, and is the author of many short stories. He has created several detectives, including Perry Trethowan and Charlie Peace.

Robert Barnard says he writes only to entertain. He regards Agatha Christie as his ideal crime writer and has published an appreciation of her work, A Talent to Deceive."

An interesting article about Barnard's use of Yorkshire as a setting was published in Mystery Readers Journal in the Winter 1995-1996 issue. It is available online here.

I did not realize that so many of his books were set in that area. Both the book I recently read (and reviewed), Political Suicide, and the book I am reading right now, A Fall from Grace, are set in villages in Yorkshire.

I will close this post with some links to reviews at other sites.

Books I have but have not read yet:
The Skeleton in the Grass (1987) at Letters from a Hill Farm. This one is a historical mystery.
A review of Dying Flames (2005) with some very nice words for Barnard's work in general, at Reading the Leaves.

Roberta Rood at Books to the Ceiling reviews A Stranger in the Family, a recent novel that I don't have yet. She also includes links to reviews of other Barnard books she has read.

A brief review of A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie, at MarysLibrary.

Mystery Mile talks about Barnard's versatility and uniqueness in Thoughts on Barnard. He is not everyone's cup of tea, but definitely worth a try.

The Guards: Ken Bruen

Jack Taylor was in the Garda Síochána (the police force of the Republic of Ireland), and thrown out because of serious problems with alcohol. He becomes, almost accidentally, a finder, a sort of private detective. The Guards is the first of the Jack Taylor novels written by Ken Bruen.

I thought I would not like this book. I resisted reading it because the subject matter was bleak and I thought it would be too dark for me. It was my husband's encouragement and recommendation that finally got me to read the book; he had heard of the book, read my copy, and liked it a lot.

I liked it too, a lot. I would venture to say it is one of my favorite reads of the year, so far.

The writing style is unique and that was another thing I thought I would not like. As my husband said in his Goodreads review: "A fast read but pay close attention as the writing style takes a bit of getting used to."

One element of the writing is frequent mentions of books, especially mystery novels, and quotes interspersed here and there, often with no apparent connection to the story. 

The mystery portion of the plot is slight. The emphasis in more on Jack, his relationships, his life, his battle with alcohol. It isn't a happy book, but it isn't depressing either.

This is what Charlie Stella said in his long and detailed review at Noir Zine (warning: lots of detail about the plot there):

What a read, what a writer! Great stuff!

I cannot say it any better.

This counts as one of my books for the following challenges:
Mt. TBR Challenge
Read Your Own Books Challenge
New Author Challenge
1st in a Series Challenge
European Reading Challenge
Mystery & Suspense Reading Challenge

Japanese Literature Challenge

This challenge, hosted by Dolce Bellezza, is the 16th reading challenge I have joined this year.  However this one starts in June and goes for eight months, which is appealing... And it is entirely different from any other challenge I have joined. (Well, not entirely, I did join the European Reading Challenge and am enjoying it a great deal.)

The challenge sign-up link is here.

1. The challenge runs from June 1, 2012 until January 30, 2013.
2. There is only one requirement: In the next six months or so read one, or more, books of Japanese literature and share them with the challenge group.
3. There is a suggested reading list here.

Since there is no requirement beyond reading one book, I don't have to indicate a specific goal, but I do plan to read more than one this year. And this would contribute to my New Authors Challenge, since I have read no books by Japanese authors up to now... if my memory serves me right.

I have three mysteries in mind, all belonging to my husband: 
All She Was Worth (1992) by Miyuki Miyabe
The Tokyo Zodiac Murders (1981) by Soji Shimada
The Tattoo Murder Case (1999) by Takagi Akimitsu
In addition, I was already interested in The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino, shown in the sign-up post. And The Thief by Fuminora Nakamura also sounds good.

Book Beginnings: A Fall from Grace

Book Beginnings on Fridays is a meme with this theme: Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

Visit the post at Rose City Reader and view the other links and get a glimpse of books you may not be familiar with.


The first paragraph of my latest read is:

Charlie Peace came out of the door of Blackett and Podmore, the estate agents, holding a sheaf of property descriptions. He slipped into his car, parked on the edge of the little square in the center of the village, and began to riffle through them.

The book is A Fall from Grace by Robert Barnard. It is the eighth book in a series about Yorkshire constable Charlie Peace.

Robert Barnard is in my pantheon of favorite authors. Of his forty (or so) mystery novels, I have read at least half of them and have another ten in my TBR piles. I have read all of the previous novels in the Charlie Peace series. This opening did not pull me in. It does set the atmosphere in a way: an ordinary man doing ordinary things. But in Robert Barnard's mysteries, nothing is ordinary.

I love this cover. I collect book covers featuring skulls and skeletons and a lot of Barnard's recent books have a skeleton on the cover. A bonus for me.