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Total Eclipse of the Murder Monday
Aug. 20th, 2017 09:44 pmI'm posting this one a little early, because I'm about to embark on a mad quest to witness a thing going in front of another thing in South Carolina. Traffic might be bad. Wish me luck!
What I've Finished Reading
“When did you stop pitching on me as the murderer?” the murderer asks Poirot near the end of Death in the Air That’s when he learns that of course Poirot never did stop. He knows it’s true, but he’s still offended. No one likes to be seen through.
Don’t trust anyone who [spoiler!wants to help you solve a murder]; that’s the obvious lesson here.
One of the best things about Death in the Air is that it contains a proto-Ariadne Oliver, just one year before the introduction of Ariadne Oliver in Cards on the Table
The Toys of Death cheats a little, if you consider long confessional letters cheating, but it's a perfectly good mystery, with a stylishly complicated murder method and a pleasantly loathsome victim - here, a selfish novelist who cultivates relationships in order to gather material for his books and drops them when he's done.
There were three other novellas in Women Sleuths, which I read with diminishing enjoyment. Mignon Eberhart's The Calico Dog was about two young men, both claiming to be the kidnapped son of a wealthy widow. The Book That Squealed by Cornell Woolrich was about a librarian who stumbles on a crime, and is so full of cheesy movie cliches that I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be a parody or not - Miss Roberts, for example, is plain and unremarkable in her everyday getup, but transforms into a knockout when she takes off her glasses - the transformation is so acute that the detective who has been ignoring her for twenty minutes suddenly begins to stammer and asks her to a "picture show." The final story is a much later production about sad clowns and contains a two-page infodump about the history of clowning. Overall, I'm happy to have been introduced to the Coles, but equally happy to give this collection a new home in the free books box.
What I'm Reading Now
The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie. This is a re-read, so I know that [Spoiler! the apparently killer POV chapters aren’t really], but I don’t at all remember what the solution was. There are some references to future and past cases, probably a mix of intentional and unintentional repetition. Poirot describes the plot of Cards on the Table to Hastings, as an example of a tricky crime, and a stock victim description used ironically in Death in the Air (“She was a bright, happy girl with no men friends,”) is mocked here, too. I like this one a lot – a skillfully woven rug of suspense that will be skillfully pulled out from under me (even if I can’t remember exactly how).
There's nothing wrong so far with One Man Show by Michael Innes, but I don't understand why Avon Classic Crime Collection chose to market it as a bloodcurdling thriller. Maybe it turns into one later, but it's pretty arch and leisurely so far. Scotland Yard inspector John Appleby, who apart from having a corpse fall on him got next to no characterization in The Ampersand Papers, is here allowed to be skeptical of Modern Art. Also, an artist was found shot! Was he murdered? Probably!
What I Plan to Read Next
Murder in Mesopotamia!
What I've Finished Reading
“When did you stop pitching on me as the murderer?” the murderer asks Poirot near the end of Death in the Air That’s when he learns that of course Poirot never did stop. He knows it’s true, but he’s still offended. No one likes to be seen through.
Don’t trust anyone who [spoiler!wants to help you solve a murder]; that’s the obvious lesson here.
One of the best things about Death in the Air is that it contains a proto-Ariadne Oliver, just one year before the introduction of Ariadne Oliver in Cards on the Table
”Yes, a private investigator like my Wilbraham Rice. The public have taken strongly to Wilbraham Rice. He bites his nails and eats a lot of bananas. I don’t know why I made him bite his nails, to start with; it’s really rather disgusting, but there it is. He started by biting his nails and now he has to do it in every single book. So monotonous. The bananas aren’t so bad; you get a lot of fun out of them – criminals slipping on the skin. I eat bananas myself- that’s what put it into my head. But I don’t bite my nails. . .”
The Toys of Death cheats a little, if you consider long confessional letters cheating, but it's a perfectly good mystery, with a stylishly complicated murder method and a pleasantly loathsome victim - here, a selfish novelist who cultivates relationships in order to gather material for his books and drops them when he's done.
There were three other novellas in Women Sleuths, which I read with diminishing enjoyment. Mignon Eberhart's The Calico Dog was about two young men, both claiming to be the kidnapped son of a wealthy widow. The Book That Squealed by Cornell Woolrich was about a librarian who stumbles on a crime, and is so full of cheesy movie cliches that I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be a parody or not - Miss Roberts, for example, is plain and unremarkable in her everyday getup, but transforms into a knockout when she takes off her glasses - the transformation is so acute that the detective who has been ignoring her for twenty minutes suddenly begins to stammer and asks her to a "picture show." The final story is a much later production about sad clowns and contains a two-page infodump about the history of clowning. Overall, I'm happy to have been introduced to the Coles, but equally happy to give this collection a new home in the free books box.
What I'm Reading Now
The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie. This is a re-read, so I know that [Spoiler! the apparently killer POV chapters aren’t really], but I don’t at all remember what the solution was. There are some references to future and past cases, probably a mix of intentional and unintentional repetition. Poirot describes the plot of Cards on the Table to Hastings, as an example of a tricky crime, and a stock victim description used ironically in Death in the Air (“She was a bright, happy girl with no men friends,”) is mocked here, too. I like this one a lot – a skillfully woven rug of suspense that will be skillfully pulled out from under me (even if I can’t remember exactly how).
There's nothing wrong so far with One Man Show by Michael Innes, but I don't understand why Avon Classic Crime Collection chose to market it as a bloodcurdling thriller. Maybe it turns into one later, but it's pretty arch and leisurely so far. Scotland Yard inspector John Appleby, who apart from having a corpse fall on him got next to no characterization in The Ampersand Papers, is here allowed to be skeptical of Modern Art. Also, an artist was found shot! Was he murdered? Probably!
What I Plan to Read Next
Murder in Mesopotamia!
