Et in Arcadia Murder Monday
What I've Finished Reading
Behold, Here's Poison by Georgette Heyer. The twist here (which is not really a spoiler) was that it looks like the case is going to be solved by a bland professional, but then an Obnoxious Amateur swoops in and steals the show. Here it's one of the Mitchell family's ultra-arch young cousins, Randall. Competition for Most Insufferable Detective is a crowded field, but Randall Mitchell deserves a special award for being the most pointlessly and incessantly caustic. It's like he's under a witch's curse that prevents him from speaking without sarcastic diminutives. I might like Randall if he starred opposite Bette Davis in All About Eve, but in book form he's tiring. At the last minute apparently Heyer and/or her editor decide they need to establish his heterosexuality for some reason, so [not a very important spoiler]he bullies and insults his cousin Sophie Stella until she agrees to marry him. Why?? We just don't know.
This was a very crisp, small, and smoothly running English Overlarge House Murder machine that I read all the way to the end and then forgot about completely, except for the lingering memory of Randall being the worst.
False Scent and Hand in Glove by Ngaio Marsh,
False Scent isn't quite Marsh back on top of her game -- in some ways it's less enjoyable than Singing in the Shrouds -- but it's solid enough. Bickering egotistical theatre people being theatrical, a horrifying but not too over-the-top murder method (insecticide in a perfume bottle!), That One Gay Guy whom Marsh keeps writing over and over (he is made entirely of stereotypes but I still kind of admire his spirit) and decent if not spectacular interrogations by Alleyn and Co..
Hand in Glove features a pleasantly unappealing eccentric who almost destroys himself with his own classism (he should go and live in Within A Budding Grove, where Little M. and friends spend all day ranking and re-ranking social milieux in a peaceful murder-free environment). It also features "possibly the most unprofessional speech of [Alleyn's] career," which admittedly isn't saying much:
"You can stop being an ass," he rejoined tartly. "I don't know why I waste time telling you this, but if you don't you may find yourself in serious trouble. Think that one out, if you can, and stop smirking at me."
There is an unpleasant adopted daughter and all of the characters seem to take for granted that her unpleasantness and her louche con-man boyfriend are an example of Blood Will Tell. I don't know if that's the lesson we're supposed to learn or not, but no one bothers to undermine it if it isn't. The best part of Hand in Glove was the brief interlude where Troy is kind to a young artist in her brusque way. But why is Troy so appalled at the idea of drawing the portrait of an "old phony" for his poor little anachronistic etiquette book? His money is just as good as anyone else's, and it's not like drawing someone's face for a book cover is the same as [Not that much of a spoiler] faking up an eighteenth-century painting of one of his invented ancestors, right? Unlike all those old friends of the family who refuse to deal with anyone but Alleyn because his accent makes them feel at home and they can trust him not to drink sherry out of a brandy snifter, I am not always 100% clear on the distinctions.
What I'm Reading Now
Dead Water is great so far: a bored journalist (not Nigel Bathgate, alas) turns an obscure costal village into Vaguely Pagan English Lourdes, but the new landowner, who is also Alleyn's former French tutor, is determined to stop all this nonsense at once and restore the village to its former respectable obscurity. How will she manage it? Can it even be done? Will murder ensue? Alleyn has done this long enough to know that any time one of his imperious elderly friends calls on him about something vulgar happening in the countryside, it's time to pack the weekend bag and tell the local constabulary to clear the bridge things off the coroner's table.
What I Plan to Read Next
Everyone loves the king of the sea, but what happens when love turns cold? Killer Dolphin is next! And probably some other things I've been neglecting to post about.
Behold, Here's Poison by Georgette Heyer. The twist here (which is not really a spoiler) was that it looks like the case is going to be solved by a bland professional, but then an Obnoxious Amateur swoops in and steals the show. Here it's one of the Mitchell family's ultra-arch young cousins, Randall. Competition for Most Insufferable Detective is a crowded field, but Randall Mitchell deserves a special award for being the most pointlessly and incessantly caustic. It's like he's under a witch's curse that prevents him from speaking without sarcastic diminutives. I might like Randall if he starred opposite Bette Davis in All About Eve, but in book form he's tiring. At the last minute apparently Heyer and/or her editor decide they need to establish his heterosexuality for some reason, so [not a very important spoiler]he bullies and insults his cousin Sophie Stella until she agrees to marry him. Why?? We just don't know.
This was a very crisp, small, and smoothly running English Overlarge House Murder machine that I read all the way to the end and then forgot about completely, except for the lingering memory of Randall being the worst.
False Scent and Hand in Glove by Ngaio Marsh,
False Scent isn't quite Marsh back on top of her game -- in some ways it's less enjoyable than Singing in the Shrouds -- but it's solid enough. Bickering egotistical theatre people being theatrical, a horrifying but not too over-the-top murder method (insecticide in a perfume bottle!), That One Gay Guy whom Marsh keeps writing over and over (he is made entirely of stereotypes but I still kind of admire his spirit) and decent if not spectacular interrogations by Alleyn and Co..
Hand in Glove features a pleasantly unappealing eccentric who almost destroys himself with his own classism (he should go and live in Within A Budding Grove, where Little M. and friends spend all day ranking and re-ranking social milieux in a peaceful murder-free environment). It also features "possibly the most unprofessional speech of [Alleyn's] career," which admittedly isn't saying much:
"You can stop being an ass," he rejoined tartly. "I don't know why I waste time telling you this, but if you don't you may find yourself in serious trouble. Think that one out, if you can, and stop smirking at me."
There is an unpleasant adopted daughter and all of the characters seem to take for granted that her unpleasantness and her louche con-man boyfriend are an example of Blood Will Tell. I don't know if that's the lesson we're supposed to learn or not, but no one bothers to undermine it if it isn't. The best part of Hand in Glove was the brief interlude where Troy is kind to a young artist in her brusque way. But why is Troy so appalled at the idea of drawing the portrait of an "old phony" for his poor little anachronistic etiquette book? His money is just as good as anyone else's, and it's not like drawing someone's face for a book cover is the same as [Not that much of a spoiler] faking up an eighteenth-century painting of one of his invented ancestors, right? Unlike all those old friends of the family who refuse to deal with anyone but Alleyn because his accent makes them feel at home and they can trust him not to drink sherry out of a brandy snifter, I am not always 100% clear on the distinctions.
What I'm Reading Now
Dead Water is great so far: a bored journalist (not Nigel Bathgate, alas) turns an obscure costal village into Vaguely Pagan English Lourdes, but the new landowner, who is also Alleyn's former French tutor, is determined to stop all this nonsense at once and restore the village to its former respectable obscurity. How will she manage it? Can it even be done? Will murder ensue? Alleyn has done this long enough to know that any time one of his imperious elderly friends calls on him about something vulgar happening in the countryside, it's time to pack the weekend bag and tell the local constabulary to clear the bridge things off the coroner's table.
What I Plan to Read Next
Everyone loves the king of the sea, but what happens when love turns cold? Killer Dolphin is next! And probably some other things I've been neglecting to post about.