The Tiger in the Smoke - Margery Allingham Book review and thoughts on book dating
I have only ever read one other Margery Allingham novel to the best of my knowledge. Black Plumes was not a Campion book and the prose was so purple in places that I was turned off in the most part. I bought Tiger in the Smoke at the Parish fete because there it was in a penguin mystery green cover. I love penguin mystery green covers.
It proved to be a stonking good read with excellent characterisation, a very thought proviking underlying theology and some of the least pc villains I have read about in this manys a long day. An albino? A dwarf? A shell-shock victim and the child of a single mother? At the same time I felt they were well fleshed out characters. I felt the device of the London Fog which I have read in several mysteries now was expertly used. To the extent that while excitedly telling The GC about it I forgot to mention the fog, which, if it were a larp would the be physical barrier invented to keep the action compelling. So in the case of larps its often a force-field, a mystical barrier, a lock-in, a quarantine, or even a fog (usually an eldritch fog, though). In general I very much dislike this sort of obvious device, both in larps and in real writing but in this case it was used with such mastery that it was seemlessly part of the thing and not a glaring patch of masking tape holding the whole thing together.
Was just reading an article in yesterday's Irish Times about book dating/read dating. I think it's a great idea. Gives you something to talk about and some sense of a common interest although I would say one of the joys of relationships and friendships for me is discovering new books and inflicting them on others. Without one ex I would never have read Pratchett for example. The GC made me realise what a badly edited book was like for the reader by offering me Neal Stephenson (actually although I disliked the book I have read a second Stephenson and we have several times ended up in heated debates about The Diamond Age, for what do we read but this?). He discovered Isabella Bird and is struggling with Catch 22 for the past year purely out of love for me.
Yes I think this may well be a great idea. How could a man who loved The Time Travellers Wife fail to be snapped up?
It proved to be a stonking good read with excellent characterisation, a very thought proviking underlying theology and some of the least pc villains I have read about in this manys a long day. An albino? A dwarf? A shell-shock victim and the child of a single mother? At the same time I felt they were well fleshed out characters. I felt the device of the London Fog which I have read in several mysteries now was expertly used. To the extent that while excitedly telling The GC about it I forgot to mention the fog, which, if it were a larp would the be physical barrier invented to keep the action compelling. So in the case of larps its often a force-field, a mystical barrier, a lock-in, a quarantine, or even a fog (usually an eldritch fog, though). In general I very much dislike this sort of obvious device, both in larps and in real writing but in this case it was used with such mastery that it was seemlessly part of the thing and not a glaring patch of masking tape holding the whole thing together.
Was just reading an article in yesterday's Irish Times about book dating/read dating. I think it's a great idea. Gives you something to talk about and some sense of a common interest although I would say one of the joys of relationships and friendships for me is discovering new books and inflicting them on others. Without one ex I would never have read Pratchett for example. The GC made me realise what a badly edited book was like for the reader by offering me Neal Stephenson (actually although I disliked the book I have read a second Stephenson and we have several times ended up in heated debates about The Diamond Age, for what do we read but this?). He discovered Isabella Bird and is struggling with Catch 22 for the past year purely out of love for me.
Yes I think this may well be a great idea. How could a man who loved The Time Travellers Wife fail to be snapped up?