I actually read this in September, but I seem to be continuously playing catch up with posts. Better late than never, I guess.
full post here: http://wI actually read this in September, but I seem to be continuously playing catch up with posts. Better late than never, I guess.
Published in 1930, It Walks by Night is the first novel in the series featuring Carr's French detective M. Henri Bencolin, "juge d'instruction , the adviser of the courts, and the director of the police." As revealed by Martin Edwards in his excellent introduction, it had started out life as a novella entitled "Grand Guignol," anonymously published in 1929 in an issue of The Haverfordian, "Haverford's first literary magazine." Carr went on to rework his novella into a novel called With Blood Defiled, which Harper & Brothers wanted to publish, changing the title to It Walks by Night for its 1930 publication. While the title may have changed, there is a still a sort of Grand Guignol vibe to this book, so Carr's original title actually makes more than a bit of sense, but renaming it as It Walks by Night was definitely a good move.
In this story, Bencolin has teamed up with his friend (and Watson-ish colleague) Jeff Marle to help Raoul de Saligny, a man "in the greatest danger of his life," who has appealed personally to Bencolin to "oversee his protection." When they meet in Paris , Marle notes that at first there is very little conversation except for a strange "reference to danger from werewolves." As it happens, the reader has already been introduced to the idea of werewolves in a passage from a 15th-century book (opening Chapter One) that Bencolin had sent Marle describing
"a certain shape of evil hue which by day may not be recognized, inasmuch as it may be a man of favored looks, or a fair and smiling woman; but by night becomes a misshapen beast with blood-bedabbled claws"
and I have to admit to wondering from the outset if perhaps we were going to be in for a bit o' the supernatural here, an idea that later seemed to be cemented by more than one mention of Poe, and of course, werewolves. But no, the crimes that follow are very much rooted in the real world, and the two crimesolvers come to realize that they are dealing with
"a murderer who is utterly cold-blooded and cynical, and who firmly believes that these acts are done justifiably, to avenge wrongs. The crimes are the means of venting on the world a spite too deep for ordinary expression."
The armchair detective in me did not solve this crime (did not get anywhere even close), and if there is anyone out there who actually figured out the entire solution ahead of the big reveal, my hat is off to you. Carr's biographer Douglas G. Greene said (as quoted in the introduction) that there were "many clues to the solution," but evidently I missed a few; I think my jaw dropped down to the floor when all was made known. Still, as with the best mysteries, it's the getting there that counts, and I did not put this book down until the journey was over.
Bencolin (and Carr) can certainly go on and on in some cases so you will need a bit of patience, but I can most certainly recommend It Walks by Night for readers who enjoy impossible crimes and the concomitant piecing together of the puzzle. ...more
between a 4 and a 4.5. This is one of those books that it seems everyone has read but me, but as they say, it's never too late. Just freaking wow!
I wbetween a 4 and a 4.5. This is one of those books that it seems everyone has read but me, but as they say, it's never too late. Just freaking wow!
I will be back with comments on this novel -- I've sort of been sidetracked from my scheduled reading while catching up on group reads, posts for publisher-offered books, and of course, matters here at home but I will post my thoughts when possible.
I hadn't intended on reading this book just yet, but after my post about The Shooting Party , one of my goodreads friends commented on the fact that people were wowing the use of the book-within-a-book format in this novel while technically, as he pointed out in his own review of Magpie Murders, it had already been done by Chekhov over a century earlier. His remarks, along with all of the high ratings for this book, did the trick and my copy came off the shelf.
The book-within-the-book here is Magpie Murders the newest and final installment of author's Alan Conway's mystery series featuring his German detective Atticus Pünd. Editor Susan Ryeland begins her tale by giving her readers a warning: "This book changed my life." The changes she notes are not minor ones -- she loses her job, "a great many friends," and she no longer lives in her "quiet and comfortable" flat. She also states that "it was all down to that bastard Alan Conway," whose books she had "always loved," but not the man himself. But before she can explain the why behind that statement, we are immediately plunged into the small, quiet village of Saxby-on-Avon, 23 July 1955, where a funeral is being planned for Mary Blakiston, who had fallen down the stairs at Pye Hall where she had worked as a housekeeper.
As I am intensely following this 1955 story, Pünd makes the announcement that he has "everything I need to know" about the case and I turned the page expecting to find out who and why, but surprise: the story comes to an abrupt end and we're back in the now with Susan Ryeland. "Oh no! "I yelled out loud at this juncture, when I realized, along with Susan, that the last chapter is missing. I hadn't figured it out at all, and by golly, I wanted to know who killed Magnus Pye. But then things changed as Susan discovers that Alan Conway was dead and that it looks like he'd left a suicide note behind. Her boss, Charles, tells Susan that his copy was incomplete as well, and that there were no missing pages to be found anywhere. Susan needs to find those pages -- the publishing house had not been doing so well and they "needed" Conway's book to "make a hit." As she begins searching for the ending of Magpie Murders, she also decides that it might be worthwhile to do a bit of sleuthing herself, to see if indeed Conway's death had been a suicide.
While I had some minor grumbles about the writing here, including some of Susan's detecting skills and choices that seemed rather hollow and Horowitz's ego writ large on the page (mentioning probably every TV show he's written the screenplays for) that caused more than a few eyerolls, I still couldn't put this book down. But then the author does something unforgivable that made me take issue: while Susan says that as an editor she doesn't care for "coincidences in novels" (and quite frankly, neither do I as a reader), that is precisely where Horowitz goes with this book. Honestly, it felt like he'd written himself into a corner and had to do something to get her on trajectory to finish this story.
I know that this novel gets sterling reader reviews, so it's probably just me being picky again. On the plus side, this book kept me entertained for hours, and I loved the 1955 story. It's the modern one with which I have issues: it's not nearly as well done, and ultimately ended in a kind of letdown for me mainly because of the author's choice here to depend on coincidence. Not a good move in my mind, and I felt cheated. I also have to say that once the reasoning behind Conway's death was revealed, it didn't seem at all like a big deal and certainly not murder-motive worthy. I will still recommend it, but as Susan Ryeland says at the beginning of the book, "Unlike me, you have been warned."
Pushkin Vertigo has done it again, this time with the classic Japanese mystery, The Honjin Murders, the first book to feature Yokomizo's "scruffy-looking" sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi. Making his debut in 1946, he would go on to solve a further 76 cases over the next thirty-plus years before his creator's death in 1981.
As it turns out, the plot was particularly ingenious and actually downright heinous when all is said and done, offering more than one unexpected twist that kept things lively and kept me guessing. The first time through I was a bit annoyed when the narrator started pointing out various items of "significance" as if telling his readers that these are things to pay attention to, or at least to keep in the back of their our minds for later. And before the mystery is completely explained, he reveals the point in the case in which Kindaichi reaches his "aha" moment, which points the reader to a particular avenue of thought. Again, I found this a bit annoying, but the truth is that this bit of Kindaichi's later insight (without giving the show away, thank goodness) took the armchair detective in me in a direction I would never have considered. I was still wrong, but after the second read I was kicking myself for not having figured it out the first time.
It is important to keep in mind when and where this book was written. While there is not a lot of character development as you read along, there are cultural and social issues and anxieties that rise to the surface that will become important later down the road. There is also much to say about the locked-room/impossible crime genre within the story itself, which provides more than just a deft touch to the mysteries at hand, also reading as a bit of an homage to the genre. My standard practice when reading this sort of thing is to read it twice, the second time to block out the noise of red herrings, etc. and try to get to the point of my own "aha" moment. The story is so nicely plotted that I didn't, even after the second reading when I already knew what had happened.
I hope that The Honjin Murders will gain a following, prompting Pushkin Vertigo to publish more of Yokomizo Seishi's work in the future. Recommended, certainly for fans of the locked-room mystery, but for readers just testing the waters with this sort of thing, you couldn't go wrong by starting here....more
Let me just say this: I did not particularly care for the one book I've read by this author, Raven Black, and I never went on to read any of her other novels, but for some weird reason when I first heard about The Long Call, I preordered it. To this day I can't think why, but as it turns out, it was a good call. I spent all of yesterday reading it, unable to put it down.
"... the cry of a herring gull, ... the long call, which always sounded to him like an inarticulate howl of pain."
And indeed, the long call sounds throughout this novel, which takes place in a small town in North Devon, centering on the murder of a man with an albatross tattooed on his neck. Given the nature of the tattoo, I immediately figured out that this must have been a person suffering under the weight of some heavy burdens, and as things begin to unfold, it turns out that I was right.
The Long Call is refreshingly free of gratuitous violence or sex, affords the armchair detective a solid mystery, and the author spends quite a lot of time on the main characters in terms of thoughts and backstories. She also manages to weave in a number of social issues without being in your face about it, and above all, takes her time in allowing the story to unfold, allowing the questions and the suspense to accumulate on the way to solving the mysteries in this novel. As I looked through reader reviews after finishing it, I noticed a lot of people found it too slow (?) but for me it was absolutely on point.
This book begins another series, evidently, given the blurb on the front that says "Introducing Detective Matthew Venn." I was so impressed with The Long Call that I will be definitely be in line to buy Venn's next adventure.
A bit dark for cozy readers, and not quite as edgy a story that might be enjoyed by noir fans, I can recommend it for those who enjoy a good mystery without the clutter that is all too often included in a lot of modern crime fiction these days....more
I have to say right up front that it took all I had to read another novel by Patrick Quentin after having read his Puzzle for Players, which seriously did not float my boat at all. However, and much to my great surprise, Puzzle for Fools turned out to be surprisingly good. At its core is the mystery of who is killing people at a private sanitarium after first psychologically tormenting the patients.
Here the atmosphere is set at the beginning and doesn't let up over the course of the story. There's just something compelling about the scene of the crime being inside of a sanitarium with its darkened corridors, locked doors and secrets; even better, this story really is a puzzle -- the author offers any number of clues to put together to get to the heart of this mystery, and his characters are so nicely drawn that at some point I realized that nearly every person in the sanitarium was a potential candidate for suspect, and that ultimately in this story, you can't really trust anyone.
Don't miss the introduction by Otto Penzler; while I don't quite agree with Penzler's assessment of Puzzle for Fools as a "suspense thriller in the Alfred Hitchcock mode," it still makes for a good few hours of fun and unputdownable reading. Recommended to those readers who enjoy these older mysteries. The armchair detective in me was highly satisfied -- I never guessed the who and so I was completely taken by surprise when all was revealed. I call that a win....more
like a 3.5/3.6; not quite good enough to make it a 4, but still well worth your time.
I first came across this title while reading **spoiler alert**
like a 3.5/3.6; not quite good enough to make it a 4, but still well worth your time.
I first came across this title while reading Martin Edwards' The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, where he describes how Mason got the idea of writing this book while staying at a hotel in Richmond upon seeing "two names scratched on a window-pane by a diamond ring: ... Madame Fougere, a wealthy elderly woman who a year before had been murdered in her villa at Aix-les-Bains, the second was that of her maid and companion, who had been discovered ... bound and chloroformed in her bed.' " It is the first in a series of books to feature his detective, Inspector Hanaud of the Sûreté, and the plot follows the investigation into the murder of a wealthy woman in Aix-les-Bains. In that town when the crime occurs is a certain Mr. Julius Ricardo, who is alerted by another Englishman to the murder, asking Ricardo to call upon Hanaud for help in solving the case. Hanaud will take it on, even though he's on his holiday, but not before giving a warning that "the case is dark."
This really could have been a fine book, except for the fact that Mason decided to reveal the "who" way too early, and then combined witness testimony and different narratives relating to the crime into one account to explain it all. Gah! How disappointing! Edwards refers to this as "lop-sided story structure," and I'm afraid he's spot on with that description. Had the author put it all together in a different way, there's a hell of a story in there -- a fake medium with a conscience, rivalry, and a rather sadistic set of villains who, in at least one scene, find a sinister joy in causing pain to their victim. All of the elements are there to have made the book a fun reading experience but they come too late -- by then the shock/suspense value is sort of lost.
I've been looking at what other readers say about this book, all of whom noted the crappy ("lop-sided" is the word Martin Edwards uses) structure that ruins the surprise, a point with which I agree, but what I don't agree with is the idea that these characters are, as one person said, "one dimensional." As someone who pays close attention to the people who populate the books I read, there's a lot going on with the characters in this novel that is well worth reading. If you're in this just for the usual crime, investigation, and solution, you miss a lot of the interactions between the evildoers and their victims, especially when it comes down to the motivations behind their actions. The human interest is not just limited to the villains of this piece, either, but I can't say more without giving everything away here.
Here's the thing: even though you now know that things are going to be a bit "lop-sided" in the storytelling, it's still a good book and there is a lot happening here to make it readworthy. Read it slowly, don't devour it, and now, armed with knowledge of how it's going to be, sit back and relax, paying attention to the unfolding of the plot.
Recommended, certainly for readers interested in twentieth century, pre-World War I crime writing. Frustrating it may be, but there's a good story within the lopsidedness.
Published in 1928, this is is tricky book to post about, because any minor hints past the basic murder plot and subsequent investigation will absolutely give away the show here. As it was, I had it pretty much sussed before page 60, but I do believe that's because it leans way more toward Victorian sensation fiction than a typical golden age mystery, and as I am a huge fan of sensation fiction, the plot was too easy to figure out. On the other hand, it is definitely a murder mystery, one which introduces Inspector Stoddart of the Yard, who will find himself investigating two murders before all is said and done.
However, giving credit to the author, she obviously spent a lot of time in plotting what turns out to be a truly nefarious crime, as the sensation-fiction part of the novel came face to face with the detection in the case. I had to look at the book from that particular vantage point, otherwise what's left is an all too-easy-to-solve mystery that offers very little challenge to the reader.
And as much as I love these old mysteries, I'm a wee bit iffy on recommending this one, even to the most seasoned of vintage crime readers. ...more
Babylon Berlin is a book I didn't even know existed until I watched the Netflix series with this title a few weeks back. When I slike a 3.7 rounded up
Babylon Berlin is a book I didn't even know existed until I watched the Netflix series with this title a few weeks back. When I saw that it came from a book, I knew I had to read it. I also have the second one, The Silent Death, sitting here but it will have to wait until I return from vacation. Speaking of the Netflix series, anyone planning to read this book should know right up front that the book is not the series -- they are two very different entities, so a word of warning: don't expect the novel to be a mirror to the television show.
very teeny bits of plot are here with no spoilers:
First novels in a series are generally the weakest, but this one is actually quite good. I mean, the reality is that there is a book two and beyond so we know things are going to work out, but I swear, I was on pins and needles throughout, wondering how the main character, Gideon Rath, was going to fare. But there's also the element of the here and now in this city that captured my attention; there are brief mentions of Hitler and of Nazis but this is a very "in this moment" sort of book that doesn't really give any clue as to where Germany will go in the next few years.
One reader noted that this book reminded her of the novels of Marek Krajewski, but I'm not sure I agree with that assessment -- Krajewski's work gets down into the deepest decadence of this period in ways that this book and author never do. I've also seen more than one comparison of Babylon Berlin to the work of Philip Kerr, but again, I don't think that's exactly accurate either. And good news for those readers who found this book "too long" and "tedious" -- there's also a graphic novel available.
If you can divorce yourself while reading this book from the stunning Netflix series, it turns into a very good read. Otherwise, you may be setting yourself up for disappointment since aside from people and a couple of plot elements that carry from page to screen, the two are very, very different.
Do not miss the series though; unexpected twists in every episode will keep you glued and wanting to binge....more
The very first Sherlock Holmes story, reading A Study in Scarlet seems to be appropriate at this time of year, since it was pulike a 3.7 rounded up.
The very first Sherlock Holmes story, reading A Study in Scarlet seems to be appropriate at this time of year, since it was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887. I didn't know that when I'd decided to read it, but I'd say that's a nice coincidence, considering that I finished it on 25th of December, some 130 years later.
A Study in Scarlet is an unusual novel -- in a big way, it doesn't really cohere like a novel should. The first part of this book brings together Holmes and Watson who both need roommates. Holmes introduces himself as a "consulting detective," stepping in to provide his expertise when government and private detectives "are at fault." Many of his clients come from "private inquiry agents," from whom he collects fees. Shortly after Holmes dazzles Watson with his "intuition," his "special knowledge," and his "train of reasoning," Holmes is called to the scene of a "bad business" at 3 Lauriston Gardens. There is very little to go on at the scene -- a dead body and few clues, the word "RACHE" written in blood on the wall -- but after a short time, Holmes manages to bring the guilty man to his very doorstep, and even knows his name. Leaving the reader wondering how the hell he did that, the next page takes us to "The Great Alkali Plain," and an intriguing story involving Mormons in Utah, a man with an orphaned little girl, and ultimately, a quest for revenge. Then it's back to the final act with Dr. Watson and Holmes for the dazzling solution. It is a flawed story in terms of its telling, but as Julian Symons notes in his book Bloody Murder, it doesn't really matter because "Sherlock Holmes triumphs as a character from the moment we meet him."
And that for me, in a nutshell, is why I've loved Holmes since I read this book as a teenager; it's why I keep reading Holmes over and over again -- it's that first meeting that really sealed the deal. I fell in love with his mind -- there's just no better way of putting it.
The introduction in this book (the Penguin edition) is by Iain Sinclair, and it is excellent, making me think of A Study in Scarlet in an entirely new way. I won't go into it, but if you can get this edition, it's well worth having just for that.
If your first experience of Holmes and Watson is from the fast-paced, high-tech BBC series with Benedict Cumberbatch, well, the stories might come across as a bit tame. The luckiest people, I think, are the ones who've read the stories first and then watch them play out across the screen.
recommended. beyond highly recommended, even with its flaws.
I don't have a number popping into my head but I'll give it some thought as far as the star rating goes and come back to it later.
While reading this bI don't have a number popping into my head but I'll give it some thought as far as the star rating goes and come back to it later.
While reading this book I learned something very important about myself in terms of reading mystery/crime/detective novels and it is this:
after decades of immersing myself in the genre, it's highly likely that I'm going to figure out the basics of how things play out in terms of solution, so I have to start looking at these books in terms of the journey. Let's just say that these days I'm pleasantly surprised when I don't figure it out, but I have to learn to more appreciate what comes before the ending. Here, I once again heard the little bell go "ding" in my brain just after 100 pages in, which translates to something along the lines of "by Jove, I think I've got it," and since once again I was right, I decided that I had to look beyond the solution and focus on the getting there. Once I decided on going this route, I didn't walk away as disappointed as I might have been.
What Indridason has done here is to take a modern crime and root it in the past. While all faithful readers of his Erlendur series know that this is pretty much Indridason's trademark, in this book he's taken it to a new level this time. We not only have an investigation going on in the present, but it parallels an investigation into a crime that happened in 1944. We are there for that past investigation with the team of Flovent and Thorson as they make their discoveries; in the present, a retired detective named Konrad is sort of following in their footsteps to discover why a man who has just been murdered is so interested in this old case, as evidenced by newspaper clippings that he was examining before his death. So basically, Indridason has written this story in parallel time frames, which is a clever set up indeed.
--if you want a spoiler-free blurb re plot you can click here. Otherwise, read on.
Another benefit of not focusing solely on the mystery itself is that in this book, the author not only gets into the occupation of Iceland, but Iceland at that time was on the edge of independence, a situation that is clearly explained here. There's also quite a bit here about Icelandic folklore and folk beliefs which I found quite interesting and which fit nicely into the plot, and if you want to get a bit more into what's happening underneath the main mysteries involved here, you'll see that Indridason also gets into the changes on several levels brought about by the war. And then, of course, there's the main event, which is the introduction of the team of Thorson and Flovent. When it comes down to it, there are a number of reasons that I'm happy to have read this book, and since I am a huge fangirl of this author and have been reading his work since before the advent of the "Scandinavian noir" phenomenon, I'll probably read the next one too. ...more
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