Georges Simenon - The New Investigations of Inspector Maigret

 

Rating: 3/5

Review:

A disappointing collection 

 

I like Maigret very much, but I found this collection rather unsatisfactory.  

For me, Maigret doesn’t lend himself to the short story form.  The novels are commendably brief, but they have the scope for Simenon to do what he does best: to build both an enveloping atmosphere and sense of place, and to paint some shrewd character portraits.  The mysteries themselves are well done, but they aren’t the main point of the novels; in a short story that’s pretty well all we get, of course, and their tricky-puzzle-and-almost-instant-brilliant-solution structure left me rather cold.

These new translations aren’t bad, but they aren’t as lucid as most of those in this series and overall I found the collection disappointing.  I am currently gradually reading the whole Maigret canon from the beginning with great pleasure, but I can’t really recommend this.

Carol O'Connell - Shell Game

 

 Rating: 4/5

Review:

Not one of O'Connell's best

 

 This isn’t among my favourite Mallory books.  I’ve read most of them by now and they are nearly all excellent, but I did struggle with some of with Shell Game.  Many of Carol O’Connell’s trademarks are still here: shrewd and penetrating character studies, fine tension, great atmosphere and sense of place (back in New York this time) and so on.  However, I think her great storytelling gift is a little in abeyance here.

This time, Mallory becomes involved in a case involving four elderly magicians/illusionists.  When a trick goes wrong and someone dies, Mallory suspects that it is not the accident that everyone assumes it to be.  What follows is an extremely convoluted tale of friendship, love and rivalry which extends back to wartime Paris...and frankly, I thought it was too involved for its own good, especially when overlaid with a lot of illusion/reality stuff as the magicians ply their trades in all sorts of contexts.  I got very bogged down in the different characters, timescales and events.  At one point Mallory taunts a suspect with “That’s your style, too complex, too messy…” and I thought it rather apposite for the book as a whole.

Although Mallory was still a sufficiently magnetic character to pull me through, it wasn’t the unalloyed pleasure of most of this series.  It’s still good enough to round 3.5 stars up to four, but it’s not one of O’Connell’s best.

M.R. James - Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

A delight 

 

 I re-read these stories with immense pleasure.  I don’t much like being frightened, but these aren’t so much terrifying as enjoyably unsettling.  They are masterpieces of implication and atmosphere, with the occasional overt shock.

I really like the donnish narrative voice, the wit and erudition and the fact that all the stories are based in scholarly activity of some kind.  James sets a wonderful tone and his character portraits are a delight, with flashes of real wit and insight.  For example, of one minor character he says “...he was then just become a Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, I may say, and subsequently brought out a respectable edition of Polyaenus…”  I just love that “respectable” (and, by the way, I hadn’t heard of Polyaenus either).   In another place we get, “…tea was taken to the accompaniment of a discussion which golfing persons can imagine for themselves, but which the conscientious writer has no right to inflict upon any non-golfing persons.”  I find it a delight to read.

These stories are tightly regarded as classics, but they are classics which I read just for the pleasure of it and not, as with a number of other “classics,” because I feel I ought to.  I can recommend them very warmly indeed.

Agatha Christie - Murder Is Easy

 

 Rating: 2/5

Review:

Disappointing

 

It seems a lèse-majesté to give an Agatha Christie book only two stars, but although this started well, I’m afraid I found it pretty poor overall.

Murder Is Easy is effectively a stand-alone mystery.  It is listed as a Superintendent Battle book, but Battle himself appears only as a minor character in the last couple of chapters.  The protagonist is Luke Fitzwilliam, a police officer returning from the Malay Straits, who meets an elderly lady on the train.  She hints at a mass murderer working in the small village of Wychwood under Ashe and Luke ends up going there under cover to try to solve the mystery.

So far, so good, but I found what followed disappointing; unconvincing characters, a wholly chichéd romance and some extremely unlikely events.  These included some convenient and implausible coincidences, Luke’s clumsy investigations, which people responded to with open frankness when they would in reality have clammed up and told him to mind his own business, and some unpleasant attitudes to some of the working people.  For example, a difficult young man has been killed and Luke dismisses the grief of his sneeringly painted, working-class mother by referring to his five siblings with the contemptuous, “I gather she has five blessings left to console her.”

There are some decent red herrings, but there is also an awful lot of ponderous discussion of likelihoods and possibilities and frankly, I got rather fed up with it and skimmed in places.  The denouement is pretty silly and overall I was left wondering why I had bothered.

Agatha Christie wrote some very fine, enjoyable mysteries, but this isn’t one of them, I’m afraid, and I can’t recommend it.

Christopher Fowler - The Memory Of Blood

 

Rating: 4/5

 

Review: 

Very enjoyable 

 

The Memory of Blood is very good, but perhaps not one of the best in this series, which is often absolutely brilliant.

Here, Bryant and May and the PCU investigate a horrible murder in which the young son of a wealthy impresario is thrown from the window of a locked room during a part for cast, crew and backers of a play.  A figure of Mr Punch is found by the bed, and as others die a link to the Punch & Judy tradition begins to emerge.

As always, this is very well written, exceptionally well-researched and full of entertaining characters.  It is by turns funny, gripping, touching and exciting.  However, it’s not an absolute favourite of mine, possibly because the background this time isn’t about the arcane history of London but about Punch & Judy.  This is interesting, but doesn’t have quite the same atmospheric appeal as some books.  Arthur is his usual self (“eccentric” doesn’t begin to cover it) but doesn’t consult quite the usual range of misfits, mystics and oddballs.

Nonetheless, this is a very enjoyable read which I can recommend warmly. It will stand on its own, but I think you get a good deal more form the books if you read them in order – and I’m already looking forward to the next.

Simon Brett - Waste Of A Life

 

Rating: 4/5

Review:

Enjoyable, with some real emotional heft

 

I very much enjoyed Waste Of A Life.  This series has a good deal more emotional heft than some of Simon Brett’s other work, which I like very much.

Here, in the third of the series featuring professional declutterer Ellen Curtis, an old and much-liked client dies and the death soon begins to look suspicious.  As Ellen and her close friends and family become involved, the only real solution is for them to try to catch the culprit.

Brett, as always, gives us an interesting cast of very well-drawn characters, and Ellen herself is an engaging narrator and protagonist.  The publishers’ blurb describes this as “a light-hearted mystery,” which I suppose is true of the mystery itself and, to be honest, I found the plot and its denouement a little thin.  However, what does give these books real interest and drive for me is Brett’s treatment of various aspects of trauma and mental health problems in his characters.  He is perceptive and humane, and I have become very invested in the regulars here: Ellen herself, her adult daughter and son Julia and Ben, and her friend and colleague, Dodge.  This may not be to everyone’s taste; the books have all Brett’s usual readability, but slightly less of the light, humorous tone of many of his books.  Personally I like it very much and I’m already looking forward to the next in the series.

(My thanks to Severn House for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Horace McCoy - They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

 

Rating: 5/5

Review:

Brief, bleak and brilliant

 

This is brilliant – but very, very bleak.  First published in 1935, it is the story of two failed Hollywood hopefuls who meet and enter a dance marathon for a prize of $1000 – and also because they will be fed for the duration.  Robert, who narrates the book, is quite an upbeat, hopeful man, while his partner Gloria is embittered, depressed and angry, often expressing suicidal thoughts.  The narrative opens after the marathon with Robert being sentenced for murder, and each chapter closes with another fragment of the Judge’s pronouncement, with chilling effect.

The main narrative is a description of the marathon; it is a frightful, humiliating, exhausting struggle, in which the couples have to dance continuously with just ten minutes rest every two hours, the winners being the last couple left standing – after what is likely to be several weeks.  The organisers are rapacious and exploitative while trumpeting their wonderful treatment of “these marvellous kids” and also organising extra humiliating spectacles to draw in the paying public...and so on.  It’s a scorching look at some horrible, exploitative media practices – which still seem to pertain in some of today’s reality TV shows – and at our attitudes to them.

The impact is all the greater because Robert’s voice is unsensational and usually quite optimistic, but a sense of the nihilism of utter physical and mental exhaustion does grow, especially as Gloria becomes even more bitter and disillusioned.  The climax is desperate, but told in a quiet, matter-of-fact way which I found gave it a visceral punch.

I found the whole thing utterly compelling and exceptionally well done.  This belongs in the same class as noir classics like The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Maltese Falcon, and I can recommend it very warmly.

Margaret Kennedy - The Feast

 

Rating: 5/5

 

Review:

A terrific read 

 

I thought The Feast was excellent.  It was a recommendation about which I was slightly dubious, but I thought it was a delight: witty, perceptive and exceptionally well written.

First published in 1947, it is the story of a disparate group of adults and children who stay at a rather run-down Cornish hotel.  It is principally a novel of character, with seven of the characters representing the Seven Deadly Sins.  This may sound rather clumsy and preachy, but I found it very shrewd and a pleasure to read.  Things happen at a good pace and the people are beautifully portrayed with an exceptional subtlety, clarity and insight.  I found myself wholly immersed in it and was very sorry when it ended.

This really was an enjoyable treat for me and I can recommend it very warmly indeed.

Georges Simenon - The Night At The Crossroads

 

Rating: 3/5

 

Review:

A disappointing Maigret 

 

 I have enjoyed most of these new Penguin translations as I make my way through the series, but I wasn’t so keen on this one.

Partly it’s the original story: Maigret goes to investigate a very curious murder at a crossroads outside Paris where there are only three buildings and a limited number of suspects.  Somehow, the atmosphere which Simenon usually generates wasn’t there for me this time, though, and the structure seemed rather clumsy with a wholly implausible denouement where the criminals confess and rat on each other.  Simenon usually has rather more class and subtlety than this.

This time, the translation really didn’t help.  It seemed rather clunky to me, with some stale usages and infelicities and sometimes almost literal translations of French idioms where an equivalent but different English idiom would be far better.  The criminals often spoke in the sort of corny slang you’d find in a bad 1940s gangster B movie and the whole thing just didn’t gel.

I’m sorry to be critical, but ths was a disappointment for me in a usually excellent series – but I have no doubt that things will look up in the next few books.

A.N. Wilson - Confessions

Rating: 3/5

Review:

Good in parts

 

I found Confessions a real mixed bag of a book.  A.N. Wilson writes extremely well, of course, and there are some nuggets of insight and description, but there is also a lot that I found frankly boring.

The opening of the book, describing Wilson’s first wife’s advancing dementia is gripping, moving and piercingly well described.  However, after this short passage, there is a very lengthy section indeed about his grandfather and father, and their intimate connection to the Wedgwood factory and family.  Even though this is about places very familiar to me from my infancy, I found it far too long and eventually very dull.  Things pick up rather when Andrew goes to school; his descriptions of the schools he attended, his intellectual awakening and some of the abuses there are all fascinating (and sometimes quite horrifying), but again there are considerable longueurs, too.  I found this throughout the book.

Wilson is in some ways frank about his own sometimes extremely bad behaviour, especially in relationships, but only to a very limited extent.  There are a number of references to his marriage “unravelling,” but no real acknowledgement of his own contributions to it.  It reminded me of the self-exculpatory passive used by Lorelei in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes where, having shot someone, she refers to him having “become shot”.  It all felt rather evasive and almost dishonest to me.

There are some good portraits of friends and acquaintances, but also rather a lot of uninteresting stuff.  The same is true of Wilson’s experience as a university lecturer at Oxford and then as a journalist.  The name-dropping is of a truly world-class standard, although I suppose those were the circles he moved in.  When talking about his own intellectual activity and relationship with religion he can be fascinating and manages to stay this side of pretention most of the time – but I did mutter “Oh, for heaven’s sake” (I paraphrase) when told “I still read the New Testament in Greek every year,” for example.

I reached the end of the book (with some judicious skimming) sooner than expected because I hadn’t realised that the last 10% was index – and felt rather relieved.  I had the sense of having waded through more mud than I’d have liked in order to retrieve a few gems.  I can only give Confessions a very qualified recommendation.

(My thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley.)