It was an Australian lizard, and barking was undoubtedly one of its accomplishments
# 85: The Great Black Kanba by Constance and Gwenyth Little:Uncle Joe was waltzing Matilda again in the lounge car, and Eileen was singing it for him in a shrill treble. She had pitched it a bit too high and was having trouble, but she solved the problem by suddenly plunging down two whole octaves. This put Uncle Joe off, and he stopped and asked her what she thought she was doing. Instead of answering him, she said good morning to us, and Clive asked, "Any tea round?"
Synopsis: Plucky amnesiac heroine awakens on a train in Australia, surrounded by a family of mad Australians, apparently related to her. And some corpses and a nice handsome doctor.
Regardless of the quality of their books, I regard the Little sisters, Constance and Gwenyth, as personal heroines, for the sole reason that they made their living lying in bed writing cozy mysteries with an element of the madcap about them. Now this, I feel, is a career plan I can get behind. Substitute "write mysteries" with "reading books with the dogs as someone hands them to me" and I have my five-year-plan.
No? Well I admit it has some flaws.
Anyway. Fortuitously, most of their books are lovely: light and frothy mysteries that all follow the same basic plan: plucky single-girl heroine becomes embroiled in a murder and finds herself wooed by both a handsome but plainspoken and saturnine anti-hero and a slightly better-looking but glib hero who just happens to leave a mysterious trail of slime wherever he goes. Indubitably, the gentle reader will discover that the hero is in fact a garden-variety cad or bounder, and the saturnine anti-hero will have not a heart of gold but a firm hand and a quick wit, and hence is suitable to marry.
Paragons of feminist theory these stories are not, but they do happen to be fun reading. They are, as advertised, madcap and screwball, with witty, zingy dialogue and interesting characters. Sadly, this is not one of their better entries. Despite the exotic locale and the interesting premise, about halfway through, the plot falls apart completely, ending in a manner that feels rushed and slapdash. It lacks, for instance, the depth and zing of The Black Stocking, but that book after all, was set in a madhouse, and featured a headless, wandering corpse. That's a tough act to follow.
So it was a nice read, and a decent one, with some fantastic one-liners ("You Americans are born restless," said Clive. "I don't know how you stand going to bed at night and just lying there until morning."). It's well written, with a mellifluous rhythm and nice characterization. It's just the plot that fell apart.
But after a headless wandering corpse in a madhouse, "nice" simply isn't enough.
Synopsis: Plucky amnesiac heroine awakens on a train in Australia, surrounded by a family of mad Australians, apparently related to her. And some corpses and a nice handsome doctor.
Regardless of the quality of their books, I regard the Little sisters, Constance and Gwenyth, as personal heroines, for the sole reason that they made their living lying in bed writing cozy mysteries with an element of the madcap about them. Now this, I feel, is a career plan I can get behind. Substitute "write mysteries" with "reading books with the dogs as someone hands them to me" and I have my five-year-plan.
No? Well I admit it has some flaws.
Anyway. Fortuitously, most of their books are lovely: light and frothy mysteries that all follow the same basic plan: plucky single-girl heroine becomes embroiled in a murder and finds herself wooed by both a handsome but plainspoken and saturnine anti-hero and a slightly better-looking but glib hero who just happens to leave a mysterious trail of slime wherever he goes. Indubitably, the gentle reader will discover that the hero is in fact a garden-variety cad or bounder, and the saturnine anti-hero will have not a heart of gold but a firm hand and a quick wit, and hence is suitable to marry.
Paragons of feminist theory these stories are not, but they do happen to be fun reading. They are, as advertised, madcap and screwball, with witty, zingy dialogue and interesting characters. Sadly, this is not one of their better entries. Despite the exotic locale and the interesting premise, about halfway through, the plot falls apart completely, ending in a manner that feels rushed and slapdash. It lacks, for instance, the depth and zing of The Black Stocking, but that book after all, was set in a madhouse, and featured a headless, wandering corpse. That's a tough act to follow.
So it was a nice read, and a decent one, with some fantastic one-liners ("You Americans are born restless," said Clive. "I don't know how you stand going to bed at night and just lying there until morning."). It's well written, with a mellifluous rhythm and nice characterization. It's just the plot that fell apart.
But after a headless wandering corpse in a madhouse, "nice" simply isn't enough.