A couple of mysteries

[read_warbler]

A couple of mysteries to review quickly today. Both of them for various challenges I'm doing.

First up, Madame Maigret's Own Case by Georges Simenon. I read this as my book eight for Bev's Vintage Mystery challenge and it covers the category: A book with a woman in the title.

Comments

[byslantedlight]

Oh, I like the sound of the Buchan book - I must look that one up! (Not in e-books though, even though I have an e-reader, after a bit of experimenting I find I much prefer reading book-books on paper when I can. That said Gutenberg Australia has provided me with a couple of books that are sitting on my Kobo waiting to be read - though one of them was accidentally Mein Kampf of all the bizarre things! One of their links was wonky, so when I thought I was downloading Random Harvest (as in the Pros story - Veils of Morning), I ended up with Hitler! I got my story in the end, but... now I have the other too, and sort of think that since its there I should probably check out the scary ramblings, cos it's really sort of job-related... I can't imagine that happening with paper books somehow!

I've never tried Maigret, and I must admit your review doesn't encourage it... buy maybe!

[caffyolay]

Gutenberg Australia, to my mind, is heaps better than the American one. I usually find what I'm looking for there, possibly because they tend to have more vintage UK authors than the American one.

I've never thought of reading Mein Kampf. Now there's a thought. LOL!

The other three Maigrets I read were enjoyable. Good on atmosphere, particularly the one set on the coast of The Netherlands amongst the dykes. I suppose among the 100 or so Maigret books Simemon wrote there were bound to be a few duff ones. *g*

[moonlightmead]

What, Huntingtower is free on Amazon? Thank you so much!

I love this book. It was serialised on the BBC in the seventies (clip here - wow, all things are on YouTube!), and I had the book for Christmas. It took me some time as a child - words like 'factor' were new to me in English, let alone the representation of the Gorbals Die-hards' dialect, and there was all the non-Glasgow dialect to sort out, too - doesn't Aunt Phemie (?) give Dickson a 'cist' as part of the subterfuge, and there was all the 'I doubt' (doot?) as well... but yes, the language! And Mr Heritage, and the Compleat Angler, and 'Dogson', and Pavender or Pub, Gravender or Grub, 'the monosyllables proved too ... something? ... for poetry', 'ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie', and Dougal, and someone who limped, and the jewel that might have been worn by a princess and 'I would not say but it has' - wow, I remember quite a bit

[caffyolay]

Yes! Free on Amazon and the next two in the series free from Gutenberg Australia. Amazing.

I can see the dialect stuff would have been difficult to get through as a child. I struggled at times but the gist of the thing was usually there. 'I doubt' confused me a bit until it dawned on me that we down south might say, 'I don't doubt' and made sense of it being used as a positive that way. Interesting though. The limping person might be Sir Archie whom Dickson went to for help towards the end of the book, injured in the Great War. I'm so looking forward to reading the next book.

I'll pop and look at the YT link later.

[guinnevere_b]

I read The 39 Steps within the past three years, and was amazed, first of all, that it was barely similar to the Hitchcock movie of the same name, but I did find it easy to visualize the locale. Huntingtower is better in that respect? Sounds good!

[caffyolay]

I think I read 39 Steps first as a teen and then in my 40s when the series came on the TV. Huntingtower really does have some lovely descriptions of Scotland. Gorgeous stuff.