Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
Agatha Christie & Dorothy Sayers, Part VI
by Subaru Diane
This is the last of our scheduled Medium Cool posts on Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers — their lives, their books, and the changing England reflected in their mystery fiction.
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Let’s talk about their legacies tonight. Why are we still reading and discussing Christie and Sayers a century after they launched, respectively, Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey? What about their other works — should their plays, straight fiction, translations, and essays be better known? Have these fortnightly conversations inspired you to reread AC and DLS (or to read them for the first time)?
Finally, some of you have expressed interest in exploring more from the Golden Age of Mystery Fiction, specifically some of the other great women authors of the period (Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Josephine Tey). If these authors appeal to you, please say in the comments, or send WaterGirl an email.
And in case I forget — thanks again to you all for your enthusiastic and thoughtful comments. You’ve helped me immeasurably in putting my OLLI course together!
WaterGirl
These have been great, haven’t they? Thank you so much, SD, for doing these!
I am totally game for having Subaru Diane do another set of these for us; I think I even suggested it to her myself at some point.
So chime in below if you’re interested and have a particular author in mind.
SiubhanDuinne
I saw The Mousetrap in London in the summer of 1959 — the summer I turned 17. The play had already broken a bunch of records, having run 7-1/2 years by then.
Alison Rose
By coincidence, I just started reading Cards On the Table today :)
SiubhanDuinne
@Alison Rose:
I like that one!
Annie
I would love a series of posts on Josephine Tey!
Why do we still read Christie and Sayers? The books are all well-crafted, enjoyable, relatively light entertainments. Sometimes we need to read things that don’t require letters to our Congressperson or phone-banking. And for me, as an adult, they are a useful reminder that some things have changed somewhat. Not enough, of course, but sexism, racism and the class structure are now challenged in a way that was only beginning when Christie and Sayers were writing. I think we need books written during a prior time to remind us, in a way that contemporary writing just can’t, of how things were during that time. For example: This is not Christie/Sayers, but nothing, nothing ever gave me as good a sense of what women’s lives were like in the early 19th century than the fate of Charlotte Lucas in “Pride and Prejudice”, and Jane Austen’s calm writing about it. No 21st-century writer would dream of that and yet for Austen it was routine. (I hope I have avoided spoilers here.)
SiubhanDuinne
@Annie:
Tey is a huge favourite of mine! I think there may be enough interest to get at least two or three good Medium Cool posts going. I’ll reread all eight Tey mysteries in the next couple of weeks and work out a schedule with Water Girl.
ETA: Thanks for your interest!
kalakal
I’ve always thought a large part of the appeal of the classic Golden Age writers is in the fact that there is usually no ambiguity, no loose ends, the guilty are punished, order is restored and everyone shall have jam for tea. The puzzle is the the thing and they were superb at that. It’s no coincidence that the one who fits this description, Christie, is by far and away the most commercially successful and best known today. They’re perfect escapism and people have always loved escapism.
I’ve enjoyed this series, thanks for doing it and good luck with the OLLI.
I’ll be finally doing my much delayed, due to Covid, lecture on Christie in a couple of weeks, the subject has certainly always been amongst the ones people are most interested in.
SiubhanDuinne
@Annie:
I love that you said this.
WaterGirl
@kalakal: Maybe you would like to do your Christie lecture for interested folks here on a BJ zoom?
SiubhanDuinne
@kalakal:
Is your Christie lecture one that we of the Worshipful Company of Jackals can access? Will it be on line, or at least recorded for later viewing?
Annie
@kalakal:
This is certainly part of it; when I started reading the Golden Age I was a teenager and my family and my entire life were in total chaos. Order being restored gave me some respite.
Though isn’t it odd that we regard books centered on murders as escapist?
SiubhanDuinne, I do hope you will post the syllabus for your OLLI class when it’s ready.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
YES PLEASE
kalakal
@WaterGirl: That would be fun if people are interested, I’d enjoy it. The lectures are about an hour long.
Dorothy A. Winsor
It’s been a long time since I read either of these writers. I think I read all of Sayers, and a handful of Christie. Do you reread Christie? I feel once you know whodunit, her work has lost most of its appeal. Still, her plots are intriguing.
My friend Gretchen McNeil wrote a YA story called Ten, that’s based on And Then There Were None. A teenager’s parents are gone for the weekend, so ten kids gather at their large, island home, and are picked off one by one. I thought the book was fine, but I knew what the twist would be. Young readers, though, were dazzled by it.
Btw, the change of title for And Then There Were None (from Ten Little Indians) illustrates what you’re saying about how we notice problems now that Christie’s contemporaries didn’t.
SiubhanDuinne
@Annie:
It isn’t always true, of course, but in a substantial number of these tidy, virtue-will-out Golden Age mysteries, the murder victim(s) is/are very frequently terrible people. So we, as readers, can stay rather detached and just follow the clues.
kalakal
@SiubhanDuinne: Sadly it won’t be accessible to anyone not in the room ( I really, really must get around to recording them myself as a youtube thingy.
However Watergirl has suggested I do it on JackelZoom which would be fun if people want it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
O/T, but I am well into Glass Girl and am loving it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@SiubhanDuinne: You rock!
Wolvesvalley
@kalakal:
That’s something Sayers addresses in the chapter “Problem Picture” in The Mind of the Maker. To quote the headings, and leaving out the extensive discussion, except to include one of Sayers’s initial points on the last one:
The detective problem is always soluble.
The detective problem is completely soluble.
The detective problem is solved in the same terms in which it is set.
The detective problem is finite. . . . The detective problem summons us to the energetic exercise of our wits precisely in order that, when we have read the last page, we may sit back in our chairs and cease thinking.
Well, rats, I had a nice numbered list and it’s gone and I can’t get it back.
SiubhanDuinne
@kalakal:
I would love that! Please do.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
No, YOU rock!
Annie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
There’s a book published in 2021, The Decagon House Murders, by Yukito Ayatsuji, also about a house on an island in which (IIRC) six people gather for a weekend. And then the murders begin . . .
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: I think I asked kalakal about that once before – maybe on the indictment zoom – when he mentioned that was was coming up.
*There is a slight chance I imagined that conversation, or I have the details wrong, but I don’t think so.
SiubhanDuinne
@Wolvesvalley:
One of the things I love about Sayers is her internal consistency. Her thoughts on “doing one’s proper job” and fair play show up again and again in her fiction and her essays and even in lighthearted things like the rules and rituals of The Detection Club.
WaterGirl
@kalakal: Did we talk about that possibility during the Indictment zoom, or did I completely imagine that?
kalakal
@SiubhanDuinne:
That’s a good point, also if the victim is nasty they are usually not exactly developed as characters. They’re pretty interchangable and forgettable, merely a device to drive the plot.
Interestingly in his earlier books ( eg Tourist Season) Carl Hiaasen has innoccent victims, he rapidly learnt that he sold better if the victims are always baddies. If you read his books only the wicked suffer ( hilariously)
kalakal
@Wolvesvalley: That is so well put, exactly what I meant but so much better expressed
kalakal
@WaterGirl: No, you did, not sure what happened, may have been me getting ill.
I’d be more than happy to do it.
@SiubhanDuinne: More than happy to
something fabulous
@SiubhanDuinne: We went to London the year I turned 10. So we saw the Mousetrap in 1977! :) I barely remember any of it, except how exciting to go to a theater ABROAD.
And yes to Tey!!
Wolvesvalley
@kalakal:
That’s because Sayers said it, not me. :-)
Annie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I re-read Christie, and sometimes Sayers, a lot when I had a job as a paralegal in a litigation law firm. I was way busy and terribly stressed and I would come home at night exhausted but too tense and strung up to sleep right away. But my brain was also too fried to read anything too serious or complicated. Christie/Sayers were perfect reads for winding down. Leslie Charteris’ Saint books and Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories were good for that too.
SiubhanDuinne
@kalakal:
Sheesh. Why can’t life be more like that?
WaterGirl
@kalakal: Are you fully recovered?
I’m just happy to know that I’m not crazy. Or that if I am crazy, we can’t prove it with this. :-)
Might you want to do with pithing a week or so of your library presentation? Or would you like a break before doing it again?
Do not be shy about letting me know whenever you’re ready?
Irishweaver
@WaterGirl: thanks for organizing this discussion. I vote for Josephine Tey.
kalakal
@WaterGirl: The lecture’s on the 18th so sometime shortly after that would be good, before I forget it all 😄
M31
and “Ten Little Indians” was already changed, from an even worse title, hard to believe
WaterGirl
@Irishweaver: You are most welcome! We have so much talent on BJ, I like to facilitate folks sharing their gifts with us.
I have never even heard of Josephine Tay, how is that possible? :-)
SiubhanDuinne
@something fabulous:
Good, another vote for Tey!
If it hadn’t been for the Covid interruption, The Mousetrap would currently be celebrating an uninterrupted 71 (not a typo) SEVENTY-ONE-plus years on the London stage.
From Wikipedia:
M31
oh, and thanks to those of you who recommended Tiger in the Smoke by Allingham — I dug up a copy and it’s really very good and not much like the other Allingham I’d read
I enjoyed the couple of Campion mysteries I did read prior to this one but they, while fine, were not as tightly plotted as our authors tonight, but this one was quite different, and Campion himself is hardly in it, it’s more of a psychological study than a mystery
hells littlest angel
Ten Little Indians was not the original title, which was something far worse, which cannot be printed here. Ten Little [deleted].
WaterGirl
@kalakal: hahaha.
Maybe on a Saturday night? So maybe 5/20 or 6/3?
I will be out of town on 5/27 in the middle of graduation party.
JoyceH
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I reread Christie often, and I remember quite well whodunit. I like the settings, the era, the characters. With Christie, and with many of the Golden Age mystery writers, the mystery itself, while neat and tidy, is often implausible. The well-crafted (but ultimately unraveled) alibi, or the Ingenious Device. In early 2020, with my sister recently deceased and the pandemic locking us in, I pulled out all my old Christies and just dived in.
kalakal
@WaterGirl: 5/20 would work I think. 6/3 would be awkward
WaterGirl
@kalakal: Okay, great!
Send me an email so we can work out the details offline?
Wolvesvalley
I think I may have mentioned Sayer’s lecture/essay “Aristotle on Detective Fiction” in the first session, but I’d like to recommend it again because it has shaped my experience of detective fiction ever since I came across it in grad school.
Except, as Sayers says in another essay, “Oedipus Simplex: Freedom and Fate in Folklore and Fiction,” Sophocles had already produced a classic detective story with Oedipus Rex.
kalakal
@M31:
I think you’re the second person to say how much they enjoyed Tiger in the Smoke. The librarian in me get’s a real kick when people like a recommendation, also it’s just a really good book and I’m happy to see more people enjoy it
JoyceH
@Annie:
Have you tried DE Stevenson? I just discovered her recently. She’s not a mystery writer – I think I’d call her books ‘women’s fiction’ rather than mystery, though the heroine often ends up with a husband at the end. They’re often humorous, and they’re just… soothing. They’re contemporary, but now they’re ‘period’, covering pre- during, and post-WWII. Britain (often Scotland), little villages, quirky characters, and spunky heroines. Plus, most of them are available on Kindle for 2.99! I’ve been glutting out on them.
kalakal
@WaterGirl: Sure will.
Wolvesvalley
@Wolvesvalley: I’m having a terrible time commenting tonight. Hit Post Comment too early and couldn’t edit afterwards. I meant to say that “Aristotle on Detective Fiction” seems to me a major contribution to Sayers’s legacy. It has helped me see when mystery authors are cheating (for instance, withholding clues from the reader, as Conan Doyle does in A Study in Scarlet).
Annie
@JoyceH: thank you! Always happy to hear about new authors.
kalakal
@JoyceH:
Thanks. I’ll have to give those a try.
A couple of crime authors of the period that i enjoy ( but are pretty much forgotten these days) are George Bellairs( more 40s & 50s) and Cyril Hare*. Hare’s Tragedy at Law is very good indeed.
*Both pen names, Hare was a judge and used his real life experience
zhena gogolia
@JoyceH: I’m reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd out loud to my husband. I know perfectly well who did it. I’m marveling at her feat of narrative skill. My husband won’t know until we’re done why I keep taking notes on the bookmark.
thanks SD, this has been a lot of fun.
Ken
@Alison Rose: Cards on the Table was one of the few where I spotted the critical clue, and so identified the murderer, on first read. I felt so proud of myself. Of course the identity of the murderer isn’t even half the mystery.
PaulB
Yes, at least the good ones. I’ve read “Five Little Pigs” (aka “Murder in Retrospect”) half a dozen times, for example. When Christie is at her best, I love the characters and situations such that rereading is like visiting old friends, even if I already know the outcome.
With Sayers, I have found more enjoyment from rereading her short stories than I do the novels. I think that, perhaps, reading Sayers is a bit more work, requires a bit more attention, than does Christie, but that’s just a guess.
Unrelated, I’ve been reading the Ngaio Marsh books and, so far, I’ve been pretty disappointed. Amazon routinely offers her books in their Kindle Daily Deals, so you can acquire the whole library for $2.99 per book if you’re patient. Ditto for Sayers, as the Wimsey books also routinely show up in the Daily Deals.
I read the first four Marsh books and didn’t really like any of them. I skipped ahead and read half of another, and actively disliked it, such that I didn’t finish it, something I almost never do. Are there any of the Marsh books that stand out that I should read to give her a fair chance?
teakay
I loved Tey’s The Daughter of Time. It’s been many years since I read it, but as a college student who was more familiar with Shakespeare’s version of Richard III, Tey’s book was revelatory. Might need to read it again.
schrodingers_cat
I like Agatha Christie and have read all of her detective stories. If you read after a long enough break even rereading them is fun. I like the solving the puzzle part of it. She gives you enough clues to put it all together. There are a few exceptions and I tend to not like those books as much.
Her knowledge of chemistry, pharmacology is spot on. There is little handwaving and pulling the rabbit out of the hat.
As for bigotry, there are other famous British authors like Kipling who are far worse.
JMG
My Mom collected all of both authors and over the years I read them all. I think on their own terms Christie creates better puzzles, while Sayers is the better writer, with a subtle but wicked sense of humor about her characters and the world they inhabit. But overall, I think their appeal is akin to that of another of my favorite British authors of that period, one as different as could be — P.G. Wodehouse. All three portray the interwar Great Britain, one way or the other, as a world where the Great War, the country’s greatest trauma, had never happened. Easy to see that appeal to their contemporary readers, and of course, timeless worlds always have their appeal long after they are created.
Steeplejack
I hope to comment more later, but I will put in two quick notes now:
For D.C.-area peeps, the lesser Brit-centric PBS station WETA-UK is running a Marple-fest all day and tonight. Towards Zero is just starting now. This one has Geraldine McEwan as Marple. Nemesis at 10:00 p.m. EDT.
As I am diving into Christie’s novels, I am starting with Poirot’s first appearance, in The Mysterious Affair at Styles. I downloaded it (and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd) at Standard Ebooks.
Excellent Kindle formatting, which can’t always be expected on ebooks, even from Amazon. In line with our discussion/argument about punctuation and formatting last night, my preferred Kindle settings are: font Bookerly, bold 0, size 5; page format portrait, wide text (narrow margins), medium line spacing. (Justification not available.)
ETA: Odd to see Julian Sands in this production (from 2008), now still missing (and presumed dead) in the California wilderness.
SiubhanDuinne
@Wolvesvalley:
She had a brain that just wouldn’t stop! And IMO she was at the peak of her mental and creative powers when she died in December 1957 at age 64. Much too young.
A few months ago I took an OLLI course on Dante’s Divine Comedy. It was necessarily a quick overview, and we used a different translator anyhow, but I went ahead and also bought the DLS translation and read it alongside the Mandelbaum. Her extensive notes and analyses are simply amazing in their clarity and insightfulness and joy in her work. What an astonishing mind she had.
kalakal
@PaulB: Death in a White Tie is good, I think. If you want a really, really worked out plot try Death at the Bar – it’s a real “you know who, but how?” job
SiubhanDuinne
@kalakal:
Have you read any of Edmund Crispin’s books?
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: Murder of Roger Ackroyd is rather weak. Read the first Miss Marple mystery instead, after Styles.
Murder at the Vicarage IIRC.
Curiously enough the first Miss Marple I read was the book in which she makes her last appearance. The Sleeping Murder.
Annie
@kalakal:
I LOVE George Bellairs’ books. I get them in Amazon Daily Deals or Bookbub daily deals and the British Library has reissued some of them as well. Good mysteries, wonderful ability to portray characters briefly but well, and refreshingly free of a lot of standard devices (the boss that hates him, for instance) that turn up in a lot of current mysteries.
Wolvesvalley
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes! I tried to read Dante in several translations before I hit on Sayers’s; it was the one that made The Divine Comedy come alive for me. And the introductions and the footnotes are, indeed, “simply amazing.” I hope your course at least let you know of her Introductory Papers on Dante and Further Papers on Dante.
PaulB
It might be interesting to examine the work of Sayers and Christie that were outside the mystery genre. Sayers had her poetry, her translations, and her non-fiction work. Christie had romance novels (those published under her Mary Westmacott pseudonym, but I would also include “The Man in the Brown Suit”) and even branched out into the supernatural (the Harley Quin stories, a few of the stories collected in “The Golden Ball and Other Stories”).
Come to think of it, Sayers’ story, “Striding Folly,” also had an element of the supernatural.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: I firmly disagree! It’s a masterpiece!😊
brantl
@Annie: Nero Wolfe is the BOMB.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
Thanks. I have The Murder at the Vicarage on my chronological list, but I’ll bump it up ahead of Roger Ackroyd.
kalakal
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh yes! I really like them. Gervaise Fen’s a great character
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
I’m so glad you’ve participated!
Re: Roger Ackroyd — Christie came in for a lot of criticism for that book, including from many of her fellow mystery writers. One who staunchly came to Christie’s support was Dorothy L. Sayers. “It is the reader’s job to suspect everybody,” she said.
P.S. If Lucy Worsley is to be believed — and I have no reason not to — Sayers was also one of the hundreds if not thousands of people who searched for Christie during her famous 1926 disappearance.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I figured out who the murder was in the second chapter may be that’s why I am unimpressed. By the time I read Murder of RA I knew Christie’s style well enought not to fall for the red herrings.
SiubhanDuinne
@kalakal:
He is hilarious! I love the series.
Edmund Crispin is the pseudonym of Bruce Montgomery, a well-known British composer.
Tehanu
Um, can’t agree with that. Lord Peter has quite a lot of PTSD from his war experiences; so does George Fentiman in The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, and in The Nine Tailors, Sir Henry Thorpe dies at least partly because of the War’s effect on his health. And Sayers frequently mentioned the social changes arising from the war.
I’d also like to put in a vote for Josephine Tey.
Annie
@Steeplejack:
Julian Sands was also in “Toward Zero”, a Christie that did not originally have Miss Marple in it, but was rewritten to include her in the Geraldine McEwan series — Saffron Burrows starred as a woman whose ex-husband has a very complicated relationship with her. He is a good actor, sad to think he’s probably gone.
SiubhanDuinne
@PaulB:
Don’t forget the wonderful passage near the end of Busman’s Honeymoon in which Lord Peter and his mother, the Dowager Duchess, talk very casually about the various family ghosts that inhabit their ancestral home of Duke’s Denver.
👻
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
LOL, especially since the original original title was much worse. (See first paragraph here.)
kalakal
If locked room mysteries are your thing then around this period John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson was churning them out at about 2 a year. As puzzles they are superb. His writing style isn’t great and occasionally he’ll throw in heavy handed farce that makes Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence read like P G Wodehouse which is a shame because the mysteries are very good indeed.
The Hollow Man is regularly voted best locked room story ever for a reason
frosty fred
It would be interesting to see Tey discussed. I enjoyed Daughter of Time, but in the “regular” mysteries I really loathe most of her characters. More later, when it’s not spoilers.
Steeplejack
@Annie:
Yes, Towards Zero is what’s on the TV now and is what I was referring to. Sorry to be unclear.
Saffron Burrows is positively glowing in this.
PaulB
I actually don’t know why Christie and Sayers are still so popular, as compared to other writers from that era. In my case, I found Christie (and Conan Doyle) because my mother was a huge fan, so our family library had all of her novels and short story collections. I was, and still am, a voracious reader, so I read every book we had.
I don’t remember how I found Sayers, but I know it was a couple of decades later, as (aside from Christie and Conan Doyle, and then Sayers), I’m not much of a mystery fan. I suspect that it was a recommendation from a friend, “Oh, you like Agatha Christie? You should try Dorothy Sayers.”
I was reading an article that discussed some of the reasons that Christie is still well known. In that article, I found a bit of trivia that I had not known. The New York Times ran a full-page obituary for Hercule Poirot on August 6, 1975, the only time the newspaper has published an obituary for a fictional character.
Wolvesvalley
@Tehanu:
Yes, and the victim was revealed to be Jeff Deacon, thief and murderer, who escaped prison and ended up on the front at the Second Battle of the Marne, with detailed description of the catastrophe and its effects on him.
PaulB
One commenter on why Christie, in particular, remains so popular:
“According to Barry Forshaw, the editor of British Crime Writing; An Encyclopedia, it is the simple language, meticulously constructed plots and the evocative settings of a bygone British era that keep people coming back.”
I suspect much the same could be said of Sayers.
Wolvesvalley
@SiubhanDuinne:
And Harriet actually encounters one of the ghosts — Old Gregory.
Sandia Blanca
Many years ago, I got on a kick of mysteries by authors named MacDonald or McDonald. Gregory, Ross, and John D., to start with. On each trip to the library, I would go to that shelf and see what treasures awaited.
The mystery genre will probably always be my favorite, and I have enjoyed all of the authors mentioned in this series, and dozens more. Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe) is a fave. As a Californian, I have always had a fondness for the Los Angeles and San Francisco noir writers (Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, et al.)
I also love British humor, from P.G. Wodehouse through Douglas Adams to current faves Jodi Taylor, Ben Aaronovitch, Richard Osman, and Jasper Fforde. We are going to Coventry next month for the JodiWorld convention (featuring Jodi Taylor and Jasper Fforde)!
SiubhanDuinne
@frosty fred:
I know you are not alone in this view. I don’t share it, but I completely get why you dislike so many of them. I’ll talk to Water Girl about doing a deep dive into Tey’s books. I really look forward to your comments.
SiubhanDuinne
@Wolvesvalley:
Indeed she does! Thinks he is Cousin Matthew!!
Shana
A SIL recommended Gladys Mitchell as a woman mystery writer so I read about 4 of them. Uneven but enjoyable as a capsule review.
Regarding books you can enjoy without needing to write your congressperson afterwards, the PG Wodehouse listserve was all het up a couple of weeks ago because Penguin is “cleaning up “ some of the language a la Christie’s And Then There Was None which had a very non-pc title originally as I recall. I didn’t think it was a sacrilege but some members were outraged. Not that they’re likely to use that language themselves but felt The Master shouldn’t be tampered with.
SiubhanDuinne
@Tehanu:
Delighted to see all the interest in Josephine Tey! Thanks.
Wolvesvalley
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yes, that’s how the topic comes up at tea. Harriet meets the real Cousin Matthew and says she met someone in the library and thought it was him. After she describes him, the Duchess figures out that it must be Old Gregory, and Peter says it was quite a compliment to Harriet — “very decent of the old boy” — to come out and meet her (but he doesn’t speak, because he never does).
Steeplejack
@JoyceH:
I find that I read most mysteries and crime novels for the characters, the setting and the narrator’s observations and point of view (and the author’s, which may be different). I do like the mystery to be engaging and the plot to proceed without clanking too much, but I’m easily satisfied. And I don’t spend a lot of brain cells on “solving” the mystery, although thoughts do arise, of course.
The great thing about the crime novel, to me, is that the detective (professional or “amateur”) has license to poke their nose into private places and explore the hidden stories beneath the surface.
frosty fred
@SiubhanDuinne:
Thanks! Those horrors in Brat Farrar–just bleah.
eclare
@Sandia Blanca:
If you like mysteries set in LA try the Michael Connelly Harry Bosch series.
Annie
@kalakal:
I like Ngaio Marsh’s Night at the Vulcan, probably because it’s set in a theatre, which is a world she knew well. The book is mainly about the cast of the play; Alleyn does not even appear until halfway through. The other Alleyn books always seemed to me like thin knockoffs of Peter Wimsey — aristocratic sleuth, stuffy older titled brother, perceptive mother.
SiubhanDuinne
@Wolvesvalley:
Yes, and when the Dowager complains that Helen is putting a new bedroom smack in the middle of where Uncle Roger always walks. And Peter politely lifting his hat to Lady Susan on the terrace. Sheer delight I adore every word of that scene — of the whole Duke’s Denver chapter, come to that.
Steeplejack
@PaulB:
Thanks for the tip on the Kindle Daily Deals. I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled for those.
Does anyone know if Kindle Unlimited (or whatever it’s called) is a good deal for getting classic mysteries?
Elizabelle
Yeah, that is fabulous news about the Kindle Daily Deals.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s going to be the Fall of Christie at my theater – the high schoolers will be doing The Mousetrap, and I’ll be directing And Then There Were None for our regular “grown-up” troupe. With any hope, we can get the new Kenneth Branagh Hercule Poirot that’s supposed to be coming out in September as well!
Elizabelle
I think we should do a “travel the world and time” series of mystery threads.
Mysteries are such a good way to visit different states, countries, cultures, time periods.
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne:
And Harriet Vane even meets one!
Shana
@Sandia Blanca: you should join the Wodehouse Society. We have bi-annual conventions, next year in Nashville, and have wonderful weekends. There are also regional chapters if you live in a major-ish city. Only about $25 a year and a quarterly journal.
unfortunately we no longer have bread roll tossing at the banquet.
Miss Bianca
@kalakal: I second (or third, or fourth) the Zoom idea! You and SD would make such a great intro team for my dramaturgical intro to the plays!
Wolvesvalley
@SiubhanDuinne:
“Bedroom” is a textual error in recent printings. The older editions said “guest bathroom” which makes it even funnier. The correct word bathroom is there a few lines farther down. The Duchess mentions the towel cupboard and says that Uncle Roger is getting foggy-looking from all the damp heat, and Cousin Matthew says “the bathroom was certainly needed, but [Helen] could quite well have put it further along.”
And yes, the whole Duke’s Denver chapter is a delight to me, too.
Annie
@Elizabelle:
Yes! I would love this. Maybe Inspector Maigret for Paris?
SiubhanDuinne
@Miss Bianca:
That sounds fantastic!! Have you ever tackled Witness for the Prosecution? I think it would be great fun to put on.
Miss Bianca
@Steeplejack:
What?! I hadn’t heard about that. :(
SiubhanDuinne
@Wolvesvalley:
Thanks. I was remembering it as bathroom, but I reread it a week or two ago and it said bedroom and I thought I must simply have misremembered. Glad to know I was right. Should trust my own powers of recollection more than I do.
Miss Bianca
@kalakal:
@SiubhanDuinne: One of the things my father and I had in common was a vast enjoyment of classic English detective fiction – I found Christie on my own, but he introduced me to Sayers and to Edmund Crispin.
Steeplejack
@Sandia Blanca:
For California noir, Joseph Hansen’s Dave Brandstetter novels are very good, starting with Fadeout in 1970. Somewhat groundbreaking, as Brandstetter, an insurance investigator, is gay. There are a dozen of them.
frosty
Just like a Louis L’Amour western!! I devoured those in my college years.
Annie
@Miss Bianca:
Julian Sands disappeared while hiking alone in the San Bernardino Mountains, back in January. He has not been found — there were extensive searches both by the Sheriff’s search team and volunteers, but they were interrupted by some really bad weather.
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: Yes. It’s so sad. Julian Sand went hiking on Mount Baldy in the Los Angeles area on a day when the slopes were especially dangerous, went missing and has never been heard from since. They searched for him for days. He apparently loved to hike the mountain, and was very good at it. His family is reconciled to his loss.
It was when California was getting all the snow, a few months ago
ETA: It’s Julian Sands.
SiubhanDuinne
There are a couple of new posts up, and this thread seems to be winding down anyhow, so I think I’m going to call it a night. But, as always, I’ll check back in tomorrow morning for any additional questions, comments, observations, or suggestions.
Thanks so much to everybody who has participated, or even just lurked, in the Christie-Sayers discussions. And special thanks to Water Girl for her exceptional organisational skills. This has been great fun!
Steeplejack
@Miss Bianca, @Annie:
Details in The Guardian.
kalakal
@Shana: Hmm, that sounds appealing, I adore Wodehouse. I always wanted to be a Drone.
Back in England I used to be in The Trollope Society – have to admit a certain part of the attraction was in the name
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: I wish I had thought to put that one forward! (Actually, my nose is a little out of joint about the whole thing, because I agreed to direct a Christie *expressly* for one of our actors who made a great fuss about wanting to be on the committee to pick the plays this year and wanted me to do The Mousetrap, which didn’t really have a good part for him so I offered ATTWN as a sop because I thought he would be perfect for Judge Wargrave – and then the creature up and announces that he and his wife are moving away this month! And I’m left holding the bag wondering who I’m going to cast as the most important character!
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the play and I think it will go over well (it’s our Halloween show), but can’t help but be like, “Oh, honestly – you couldn’t have told me why you were so miffed that we were moving it to the fall?”!
CaseyL
I liked most of Ngaio Marsh’s books, but agree that some of her schticks (and boy, did she have them!) become less tolerable as time goes on. Plus some social attitudes that I found deeply offensive.
Second the recommendation for John Dickson Carr – though I have to say I like his historical mysteries more than his locked-room mysteries.
The first JDC I ever read was The Devil in Velvet, which takes place in the 17th Century and involves time travel, deals with the Devil, and a lot of sex. There’s also The Burning Court, which takes place in the 1950s and involves sorcery from the 18th Century. And Captain Cut-throat, which takes place in Napolean’s France. And Fire Burn, where a modern-day policeman is transported back to the early 1800s to solve a murder mystery there. (JDC did seem to delight in transporting people from the modern era – or, I should say, his modern era – back into the more boisterous centuries.)
kalakal
@Elizabelle: What a good idea!
Nelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Yay!
kalakal
@Sandia Blanca:
That sounds good, I love the Thursday Next books
Wolvesvalley
@SiubhanDuinne: Thank you so much for conducting these discussions!
Elizabelle
@kalakal: I am so looking forward to your Zoom! I hope you can make it happen. At any time convenient to you!
Timill
@Steeplejack: Don’t know about KU for classics (I use it for new works generally) but I recommend https://www.ereaderiq.com/track/authors/ to look for price drops by author.
kalakal
@SiubhanDuinne: Thank you, been a lot of fun. I would enjoy one on Tey, don’t know her books that well
Auntie Anne
Another yes for Tey, please. I think I’ve read The Daughter of Time two or three times. I also read most of Ngaio Marsh as a young adult and remember very little about any of them. So I think that says something about them . . . They sure didn’t stick with me.
I adore historical mysteries. Rennie Airth’s post-WWI series is excellent; I think someone here recommended it, and I owe that person a big thank you.
Steeplejack
@Timill:
Thanks!
Steeplejack
@Auntie Anne:
Will look up Rennie Airth. Thanks!
Nelle
@Elizabelle: Yes! Yes!
Sandia Blanca
@eclare: thanks, eclare, I have read a number of those, but took a break when they were getting too intense for my temperament. Now that I’ve retired, I may dip back into that series.
Sandia Blanca
@Shana: Ooh, that sounds great! I’ll look into it. Thank you.
Sandia Blanca
@Steeplejack: Thank you, I have not read any of these. Will add them to my reading list.
Sandia Blanca
@kalakal: Yes, those are my favorites by Fforde, along with his “Nursery Crime” mini-series.
Etv13
@PaulB: I second Kalakal on Death in a White Tie. I also really like Death of a Peer and the two Dolphin Theater books, Killer Dolphin and Light Thickens.
Ruth Wright
I love the books by Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey, and Margery Allingham and reread all three regularly. I would enjoy reading commentary on them.