At Bertram’s Hotel by Agatha Christie

Miss Marple #11

272 pages

Publisher: Harper Collins

Publishing Date: January 1, 1965

Kindle edition

 

Blurb

A grand old London hotel

A series of alarming coincidences

Danger lurking down every corridor

Impeccable service. Luxurious rooms. Eccentric guests. There are worse places for Canon Pennyfather to find himself stranded than Bertram’s Hotel.

But when he gets his dates in a muddle and attempts to travel to Lucerne a day too late, he unwittingly sets off a violent chain of events.

And Miss Marple is convinced there is more going on than meets the eye.

Never underestimate Miss Marple

 

Review

This was a weird one. For starters, there isn’t all that much Miss Marple in this story. Almost all investigating is done by Scotland Yard, by Chief Detective- Inspector ‘Father’ Davy to be precise. What’s more, until the very end of the story, there is no murder. On the surface, there doesn’t appear to be any sign of crime being committed at all. If it wasn’t for a perspective shift to Scotland Yard, some way into the story, I would have been willing to believe that this was a story about Miss Marple enjoying a well-deserved holiday in London while staying in what appears to be a perfect hotel.

Since I mentioned Scotland Yard, this is what I wrote when they were first introduced: ‘Going out on a limb here (at 14%) but if Miss Marple is staying in Bertram’s Hotel and the police are looking for a criminal operational headquarters somewhere, the odds are, it’s right where good old Jane is.’

Back to the story. We’re introduced to a large cast of characters all staying in the hotel or connected to people staying there. The list is too long to mention everybody and for a very long time, it is unclear how everybody and everything ties together, if at all. In fact, for the longest time, this story appears to be not a whodunnit but instead a ‘whatonearthisgoingonit’. How do a train robbery, Bertram’s Hotel, Canon Pennyfather, a racing driver named Ladislaus Malinowski, Mr. Justice Ludgrove, Bess Sedgwick, and her estranged daughter Elvira tie together?

Fun fact while I’m mentioning the train robbery. It is interesting to note that this book was published about 16 months after the (in)famous great train robbery in the UK happened (August 1963).

I’m not going to try and relate everything that happened in the story. There is simply too much going on and if there is a way of summarizing it all without confusing others, it is beyond what I’m capable of. To be honest, I’m not convinced I totally got everything that was going on here, which is another reason this is a less satisfying Marple story.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy this read. What we did get from Marple’s point of view was as delightful as always. I thoroughly enjoyed her trips into London and the accompanying descriptions of shows and parks. She is also still as sharp as she’s always been. Even as she recognises how ‘perfect’ Bertram’s Hotel is—shortly after arriving courtesy of Raymond West and his wife Joan—and how well it matches memories from her childhood, she picks up on an unmistakable atmosphere of danger.

While I was disappointed Miss Marple was more or less on the sidelines of this investigation, Chief Detective-Inspector ‘Father’ Davy almost made up for that deficiency. If anything, he reminded me a little of Columbo from the TV series and was a very refreshing break away from Christie’s usual bumbling Scotland Yard characters.

This was by no means a bad book. I’m not sure Agatha Christie was capable of writing a bad or boring story. It simply wasn’t quite what I hope to find in a Miss Marple book.

Finally, because I apparently can’t write these Agatha Christie reviews without mentioning the All About Agatha podcast, I couldn’t help thinking about their ‘stuck in its time’ feature when the hotel was described. Not because there was anything offensive about it, but because the appeal of the hotel is very much that it is stuck in a time otherwise long past.

 

 

 

 

A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie

Miss Marple #10

188 pages

Publisher: Agatha Christie Ltd / Planet Three Publishing

First Published: November 16, 1964

Library

 

Blurb

A Caribbean resort

Strangers thrown together

Is there evil in paradise?

Major Palgrave enjoys an audience, and, in Miss Marple, he discovers a captive audience too polite to walk away. But midway through recounting the tale of a multiple murder, he stops suddenly when something, or someone, catches his eye.

Then, when he’s found dead the following day, Miss Marple suspects that someone wanted to silence the talkative major. Permanently.

Never underestimate Miss Marple

 

Review

Miss Marple is on holiday in the Caribbean, organised and financed by her nephew Raymond West. While her stay certainly works wonders for her rheumatism, Miss Marple is bored…nothing ever happens. Things get a little more interesting when Major Palgrave digs out his wallet to show her the picture of a murderer, only to abort this action when he looks at something behind Miss Marple and appears to panic.

The next day, Major Palgrave is discovered dead and since he was old and was supposed to suffer from high blood pressure, his death is accepted as natural without question from anybody. Except for Miss Marple that is. When not long after a servant at the resort also dies, investigations into both deaths commence.

It’s fair to say that there’s no shortage of suspects in this book. There are many complicated and somewhat dodgy (love) entanglements among the guests, and gossip is rife. Miss Marple is struggling without one of her usual buddies to discuss the circumstances and suspects with. That is until she gets closer to Mr. Rafiel, a very old and filthy rich fellow guest on the island.

I rather liked Mr. Rafiel. He has a very low opinion of people in general and doesn’t care what others think about him. Why should he, given that he is indeed ‘filthy rich’? This quality makes him very open and honest. It also means that he is a good sounding board for Marple as soon as he realises that she isn’t the doddering old lady he first took her for.

It takes a third death for Miss Marple to fully understand what has been going on, and she’s only just in time to prevent a further murder.

I have no doubt that when I listen to the All About Agatha podcast later today, Kemper and Catherine will have criticism about all sorts of developments in this story. And that’s fair enough. How could they possibly rate all of Agatha Christie’s stories if they accepted each of them as absolutely wonderful? I, on the other hand, am on no such mission, which means that I can read these books for enjoyment only, without looking for faults or inconsistencies. As with the previous Christie titles I’ve revisited, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

I’m having so much fun re-reading these stories. What makes it even better is that even when I do, vaguely, remember whodunnit, I most of the time have no idea how or why that could be possible. Which goes a long way towards explaining why I, who normally doesn’t enjoy re-reads because I already know the story, get so much pleasure from revisiting these mysteries.

The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side by Agatha Christie

 

#9 Miss Marple

Publisher: Harper Collins

First Published: January 1, 1962

291 Pages

Own

Kindle

 

Blurb

A movie star

A deadly cocktail

A murder

When glamorous Marina Gregg came to live in St Mary Mead, tongues were sure to wag.

But, with a local gossip’s sudden death, has one tongue wagged a bit too much?

As the police chase false leads, and two more victims meet untimely ends, Miss Marple starts to ask her own questions.

What secrets might link a peaceful English village and a star of the silver screen?

Never underestimate Miss Marple

 

Review

 

“The mirror crack’d from side to side: “The Doom has come upon me,” cried the Lady of Shalott.”

Alternative blurb:

One minute, silly Heather Badcock had been gabbling on at her movie idol, the glamorous Marina Gregg. The next, Heather suffered a massive seizure. But for whom was the deadly poison really intended?

Marina’s frozen expression suggested she had witnessed something horrific. But, while others searched for material evidence, Jane Marple conducted a very different investigation – into human nature.

 

I’m not sure if/when I read this story before. I do however remember watching an adaptation on TV and as soon as I started the book, the guilty party as well as the reason for the (first) murder came back to me. To be honest, it is quite possible I would have guessed what was going on without that prior knowledge. Christie is rarely as ‘obvious’ about what’s going on in her mysteries as she is here. Whatever the case may be, I can’t say this spoiled the book for me. Quite the opposite, in fact. I greatly enjoyed myself as I recognised the further clues as they were presented. It made a wonderful change from the normal process where I only recognise by the end of the story all the pointers I had missed along the way.

The story starts with Miss Marple reflecting on life, getting older, modernisation, and change. St. Mary Mead isn’t what it used to be and mostly she blames the Development.

 “The new world was the same as the old. The houses were different, the streets were called Closes, the clothes were different, the voices were different, but the human beings were the same as they always had been. And though using slightly different phraseology, the subjects of conversation were the same.”

Miss Marple meets Heather Badcock and tells her she reminds Marple of Alison Wilde. When Heather asks what happened to Alison, Miss Marple replies ‘Oh—she died’. Foreshadowing much?

When Heather Badcock meets Marina Gregg, movie star, during the fete at Gossington Hall, Marina’s gaze fixes on something and her expression becomes ghastly. Shortly afterwards, Heather Badcock becomes unwell and dies. Since her death occurs after she drinks what had been Marina Gregg’s (untouched) cocktail, the big question is who the intended victim actually was.

In the subsequent investigation, led by recurring character Dermot Craddock, the focus is firmly on Marina Gregg and her past. The private reception in Gossington Hall, as it turns out, was frequented by quite a few guests who might have reasons to hold grudges against Marina and the investigation goes in various directions before Miss Marple provides the solution.

As always, I loved this story. Between the mystery, the characters, and Christie’s storytelling prowess, I lost myself in the book and the unravelling of what was going on. One or two things pulled me up short too and one story thread in particular brought home to me how we read books through the prism of our own experiences in the world. While I can’t go into particulars for fear of spoiling the story, it is safe to say that I had a few thoughts about what is going on in this story that didn’t occur to me in the past.

As I said, I love Christie’s writing voice. The following two quotes are good examples of why that is the case. This one for example, is Miss Marple to a T. She may not like everything that’s happening to the world she used to know, but she is honest enough to acknowledge that her dislike doesn’t mean that anything is wrong.

It’s human nature I’m interested in, you know, and human nature is much the same whether it’s film stars or hospital nurses of people in St Mary Mead or,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘people who live in the Development.’

 And this quote is a clear indication that not so much has changed in our world between the 1960s and now. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

‘It’s news,’ said Dermot Craddock, ‘and some pretty nasty things can be said in the way of fair comment.’

Suffice it to say that I’m delighted I discovered the All About Agatha podcast and even happier that it has made me revisit her books. I foresee a lot more Christie reviews in my immediate future.

Nora by Nuala O’Connor

426 pages

Publisher: New Island Books

Library book

Book Club Read

 

Blurb

Dublin, 1904. Nora Joseph Barnacle is a twenty-year-old from Galway working as a maid at Finn’s Hotel. She enjoys the liveliness of her adopted city and on June 16—Bloomsday—her life is changed when she meets Dubliner James Joyce, a fateful encounter that turns into a lifelong love. Despite his hesitation to marry, Nora follows Joyce in pursuit of a life beyond Ireland, and they surround themselves with a buoyant group of friends that grows to include Samuel Beckett, Peggy Guggenheim, and Sylvia Beach.

But as their life unfolds, Nora finds herself in conflict between their intense desire for each other and the constant anxiety of living in poverty throughout Europe. She desperately wants literary success for Jim, believing in his singular gift and knowing that he thrives on being the toast of the town, and it eventually provides her with a security long lacking in her life and his work. So even when Jim writes, drinks, and gambles his way to literary acclaim, Nora provides unflinching support and inspiration, but at a cost to her own happiness and that of their children.

 With gorgeous and emotionally resonant prose, Nora is a heartfelt portrayal of love, ambition, and the quiet power of an ordinary woman who was, in fact, extraordinary.

 

Review

This is going to be one of my ‘I’m not entirely sure what to say’ reviews.

Don’t get me wrong. Nora’s story captivated me. I loved her voice and the way she picked her words and formulated her sentences.

“Sometimes I crave a little alone time to just let my thoughts scatter.”

That’s just one example. I have a much longer list of Nora-sayings written down in my reading-notebook.

Nora was also an easy read in so far that I got swept up in the tale, found it hard to put the book down, and couldn’t wait to get back to it when I had to pause my reading. At the same time, Nora is anything but an easy read when it comes to the content of her story and in my mind, I retitled it…

The things we do for love…

Because you would need to love somebody deeply in order to put up with everything Jim Joyce put Nora through. From James refusing to marry her for the longest time, through the various locations where they lived in sometimes abject poverty dependent on others just to keep a roof over their growing family’s heads and food on the table, to a life led making sacrifices for James’s art, it takes someone special and an extraordinary level of love and trust to stay the distance.

I wonder if I would have had a better understanding of Nora and James if I’d known more about them and if it would have made a difference if I had read, for example, Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake.

 I’m not sure how to write this review without summarising the journey the Joyce family made, and honestly, if you're curious about that, you're far better off reading this beautiful book.

Ultimately, Nora was a gorgeously written book about an anything-but-easy life. I was happily surprised to discover it was universally loved and admired by the members of my reading group, even if one or two felt the need to remark on the more erotic scenes in the story. I’m very happy I read this story. And it just goes to show that it is indeed true that behind every great man there’s a great woman because it is hard to imagine James Joyce reaching the heights he achieved without Nora facilitating his life and art.

 

 

Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot #36

Publishing Date: Nov 1959

Publisher: Harper Collins

Kindle Edition

 

Blurb

 

Two teachers discover the body of the school's unpopular games mistress, shot through the heart from point-blank range. The school is thrown into chaos when the 'cat' strikes again, and Julia Upjohn knows that without Poirot's help she could be next.

 

Review

 

Before starting this book:

If I remember correctly, I first read this book when I was 15 years old and on holiday in Norway with my parents and brother. I had run out of (Dutch) books to read and because I was at risk of getting bored, my mother bought me this title and encouraged me to read it. I loved the story and it turned out to be the start of a life-long reading relationship with the Queen of Crime. To this day I remain grateful she brought me to Agatha Christie. All of which means that Cat Among the Pigeons was the first full length novel I read in English. Since all of the above happened 45 years (I’m really getting old 😊) ago, it is safe to say I remember very little about this mystery.

 

After I finished Cat Among the Pigeons:

In the first paragraph, I stated that I remembered very little about this mystery, but my memory must be better than I gave it credit for. Less than 25% into the story and well before the first murder, I had a pretty good idea about one aspect of this story. And this continued. The more I read, the more I remembered. It made for a weird reading experience. It felt as if I was always a step or two ahead of the story. Having said that, there were one or two big revelations that did surprise me.

At last, I get to the review proper.

Cat Among the Pigeons has both thriller and mystery elements. I think it’s safe to say that it starts as a thriller involving a revolution and jewelry, then morphs into a traditional mystery set in an English boarding school, before the two merge and everything is revealed.

I was going to put a summary of the story here. In fact, I’d already typed out several paragraphs before deleting them again. There is an awful lot going on in this story, and the cast of characters is huge. I’m not sure I could give a coherent summary without the use of numerous (potential) spoilers. And spoiling even one aspect of this story would be a crying shame.

This is a very good Christie. The way the story is set up, in two different countries and in two different genres, it could so easily have turned into a mess. I’m very happy to say it didn’t. The thriller aspects work as well as the mystery parts, they are both well plotted, they do not get in each other’s way, and actually managed to complement and strengthen each other. All the characters, both minor and major, are vividly drawn, and as (almost) always, the dialogue sparkles. Besides, who doesn’t love an observation like this one:

“Miss Bulstrode had another quality which demonstrated her superiority over most other women. She could listen.”

Hercule Poirot doesn’t appear in this story until the last quarter of the book. And while it is always a shame when we get less of our favourite Belgian detective, the timing did make perfect sense in this setup.

While I’m not sure this is the best of the Christie stories I’ve recently read, it is definitely the story I enjoyed most. I lost myself in this book, the characters captivated me, and the mysteries kept me on my toes.

I’m thoroughly enjoying my reconnection with Agatha Christie. A few decades may have passed but it seems that my reading tastes having changed that much. My mam knew what she was doing when she picked Cat Among the Pigeons from the tiny collection of English books in that Norwegian shop. I’ll never stop being grateful; for her and for all the wonderful things she introduced into my life.

Romantic Company by Curtis Sittenfeld

 

320 pages

Publisher: Doubleday

Release Date: April 6^th, 2023

NetGalley

 

Blurb

A comedy writer thinks she’s sworn off love, until a dreamily handsome pop star flips the script on all her assumptions. Romantic Comedy is a hilarious, observant and deeply tender novel from New York Times–bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld.

Sally Milz is a sketch writer for "The Night Owls," the late-night live comedy show that airs each Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life.

But when Sally’s friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actor who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show—and in society at large—who’ve gotten romantically involved with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women. Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch called the "Danny Horst Rule," poking fun at this phenomenon while underscoring how unlikely it is that the reverse would ever happen for a woman.

Enter Noah Brewster, a pop music sensation with a reputation for dating models, who signed on as both host and musical guest for this week’s show. Dazzled by his charms, Sally hits it off with Noah instantly, and as they collaborate on one sketch after another, she begins to wonder whether there might actually be sparks flying. But this isn’t a romantic comedy; it’s real life. And in real life, someone like him would never date someone like her...right?

With her keen observations and trademark ability to bring complex women to life on the page, Sittenfeld explores the neurosis-inducing and heart-fluttering wonder of love, while slyly dissecting the social rituals of romance and gender relations in the modern age.

 

Review

I’ll be honest and admit that I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started this book. Would this really be a romance—would it have a romantic arc, would there be angst, would things almost go wrong before (most importantly) concluding on a happy ending?—or was I about to discover the title was Romantic Comedy because the story broke all the rules and didn’t give us that all-important HEA? My concerns only increased when I came across the line “Romance doesn’t require a happy ending”. Spoiler alert: yes! it does.

At the risk of actually spoiling the story, I am going to say here that I worried about nothing. Romantic Comedy is indeed a romance in the truest sense of the word, and a delightful one at that. Allow me to list everything I appreciated.

It was wonderful to have two main characters who have some lived experience under their belt. Both Sally and Noah have been through relationships that didn’t last the course and neither of them is looking for love when they first meet.

The road from meeting each other to ending up together is anything but smooth but the obstacles in their way, self-inflicted as they may be, make sense for who Sally and Noah were. The way they reconnected after a two-year separation (as a result of and during the Covid lockdown) made perfect sense. Whatever angst there was, mostly on Sally’s part, felt realistic and was never overdramatic. And, most importantly, I completely bought the fact that these two, apparently mismatched, characters would find each other.

On a non-romantic level, I loved the insights we got into how a weekly comedy show like Saturday Night Live operates, just as I loved the references to songwriting, performing and music in general.

This story hosts a large cast of secondary characters and all of them were well presented and fully formed.

I also want to give a special shout-out to the ‘Danny Horst Rule’ as introduced in this story. Goodness knows it is true that while society at large happily accepts that average-looking men end up pushing above their weight and connecting with women who are more beautiful and successful than they are, the opposite is almost always met with disbelief and scorn.

And then I have one or two very personal reasons why this book resonated with me. Like Sally in the story, I’m a huge fan of the Indigo Girls and I loved how passionate she was when she spoke about them. Noah’s reflection that he isn’t overly fond of having to play his first-ever hit all the time, also made me smile since I have a daughter who would happily never again play the first song she wrote but finds herself doing so occasionally anyway because it is her granny’s favourite.

I’m looking forward to the ‘official’ reviews of this book when it is released. Provided there will be any, of course. As a rule, romances don’t get reviewed by major newspapers and most other major review sites. It is almost as if romance is less worthy as a genre since it is mostly written and read by women. And that makes me wonder if they’re about to come up with a term like ‘literary romance’. I hope that doesn’t happen for the same reason that I’m not a fan of the term ‘literary thriller’. Adding the word literary to a branch of genre fiction doesn’t achieve anything apart from diminishing the rest of that particular genre. While I’m willing to concede that there are badly written romances and thrillers available, I want to say those are vastly outnumbered by well-written and well-plotted books featuring characters with depth and real stories with real messages. What’s more, who is to decide what is literary and what is not? As with many qualifying definitions, the answer appears entirely arbitrary to me.

Since I don’t want to end my review of this fantastic book with a rant, allow me to summarize my thoughts. Romantic Comedy was fabulous. The story and characters pulled me in from the start, the setting is fascinating, the sparkling dialogue is intelligent, and the overall reading experience was uplifting and very fulfilling. In fact, I enjoyed this book so much that I’ve already recommended it to another person even though it won’t be released for another week or two. For me, this book deserves 5 glorious golden stars!

 

 

The Deadly Weed by Cora Harrison

Reverend Mother Mystery #10

240 pages

Publisher: Severn House

Publication Date: March 7, 2023

 

Blurb

The Reverend Mother's investigative skills are called into action when a local tobacco factory burns down and fingers are pointed at one of her ex pupils...

1920s. Cork, Ireland. Early one morning the Reverend Mother receives news of a deadly fire at the local cigarette factory, a place where she'd been so proud that some of her pupils had been given a steady job. In a city full of poverty, unemployment and political unrest, these ex pupils of hers had surely been blessed with such prospects. Now, though, she is worried . . . What happened at the cigarette factory and why are there rumours circulating that one of her 'girls' was responsible?

Inspector Patrick Cashman is under pressure to quickly find the cause of the fire - and identify a suspect - to placate the visiting Lord Mayor and Commissioner and secure his hopes of promotion. Patrick turns to his friend, the journalist and law student Eileen MacSweeney, for help, along with the ever insightful and calm Reverend Mother. From the fog-ridden streets of the slums to the green pastures and prosperity of nearby Youghal, together they begin to unravel a seedy history of greed, ambition and a desire for power.

 

Review

It has been a while, but I read mysteries by Cora Harrison in the past. I was a huge fan of her historical Burren mysteries and especially the main character Mara, Brehon of the Burren. Which explains why I got very excited when I discovered The Deadly Weed on Netgalley and why I didn’t hesitate before requesting the book.

Like The Burren Mysteries, the Reverend Mother series is set in the past. But, while the Burren stories take place centuries ago, the Reverend Mother investigates during the first quarter of the last century at a time when WW I and the Irish War of Independence were still fresh in everybody’s mind and Ireland was struggling to make the transition from occupied land to independent nation.

The Reverend Mother lives and works close to Cork’s harbour in an area of great poverty and deprivation. She runs a school for children from the poorest areas of Cork in an effort to give them a start in life and an opportunity to lift themselves out of the abject poverty they were born into. When a relative of hers opens a cigarette factory in Cork and needs employees with nimble fingers, the Reverend Mother is delighted when she manages to secure a job for six of her former pupils. Her delight turns to deep concern when, after the factory is set alight and the overseer dies from smoke inhalation, one of those girls is accused of setting the fire and causing the death.

Officially the crime is being investigated by Patrick Cashman, also a former pupil of the Reverend Mother’s. He finds his efforts hampered by politics and even the assistance of Eileen MacSweeney, another successful ‘graduate’ from the Reverend Mother’s school does little except deepen his worry that he has sent a young girl to prison for a crime she didn’t commit.

In the end, it is up to the Reverend Mother to figure out what happened and why even if it means digging into her own family’s past.

I enjoyed this book and for once I’m not sure if it is the mystery or the surrounding story I enjoyed most. The mystery was more than intriguing enough to keep my interest and the solution was both satisfying and plausible. What’s more, the clues were there for the (astute) reader to pick up on and I am happy to say that I was more than halfway there myself when the solution was presented.

The historical setting, the ins and outs of convent life, the descriptions of the Cork slums, and the insight into the emergence of the Irish police force (the Garda) intrigued me as much as the mystery though. It is at times hard to believe that only 100 years ago Ireland was at the start of its journey as an independent country, and the descriptions in this book brought the situation at the time into full and at times horrific focus.

This is not a thrill-a-minute sort of story. In fact, there didn’t seem to be a lot of urgency to solving of this crime, and there weren’t any hard-stopping moments or confrontational scenes. The quiet pace of this story and the thoughtful manner in which the Reverend Mother dealt with both this crime and her day-to-day activities seemed to fit the setting and her character perfectly. The cast of secondary characters was delightful because it featured personas both from the top and from the bottom layers of society. The writing in this book is beautiful and the details shared are wonderfully balanced with dialogue and descriptions.

As I said at the start, it has been some time since I last read a Cora Harrison book. I won’t wait as long before I pick up another title by her this time around.