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So Much For That by Lionel Shriver

Jun21

I read Lionel Shriver’s 2005 Orange-prize winning book, We Need To Talk About Kevin, a few months ago, and I thought then that Ms. Shriver was a talented if sometimes self-indulgent writer. Her latest novel, So Much For That, confirmed that opinion.

So Much For That tells the story of the death-by-cancer of Glynnis Knacker, mostly from the point of view of her husband, Shep Knacker. Glynnis does not go gently. She’s a selfish you-know-what before she is diagnosed with mesothelioma, and cancer does not soften her hard edges nor her sharp tongue. Shep, on the other hand, compares himself to water, “adaptive, easily manipulated, and prone to taking the path of least resistance, . . . yielding, biddable, and readily trapped.” As the novel opens, Shep is about to take a step that he has been planning for all of his life: he is about to leave the rat race for a remote island paradise off the coast of Africa to live out the rest of his life in peace and freedom. Glynnis’s cancer diagnosis changes the plan completely.

The novel is about the U.S. health care system and its many flaws. It’s self-indulgence derives from the inclusion of a character, Shep’s best friend Jackson, whose main purpose is to voice all of the political ranting of an American author who lives in London and who sees the American systems of government, free enterprise, and especially healthcare as a travesties and offenses to the human race as a whole. Jackson lays it on pretty thick, and I can only conclude that the author had a lot to say about politics and healthcare and chose to use Jackson as a vehicle to say it. It gets a little old.

The story itself, though, especially the characters’ interactions with one another, is good. It’s sad to watch the financial ruin of a hard-working man who does everything he can to save his wife or to at least see her die with some dignity and peace. The doctors and the hospitals don’t seem to be of much help is reaching those goals. Some of the observations in the book are commonplace. People will do and spend almost anything to retain some hope of recovering from a serious illness. Cancer is horrible. Fighting cancer with chemotherapy is a matter of giving oneself enough poison to kill the cancer and hoping that the poison doesn’t kill the rest of you. Death and dying are gruesome and hellish, and the process does not always, or even usually, bring out the best in people.

More often, though, Ms. Shriver shows more insight into people and circumstances and relationships than I could have expected. Glynnis, the character who is dying, does not become a different person, more loving and kind and spiritual, but she does change. At first, she becomes more self-centered than she was before her cancer diagnosis, and later, much later, she becomes, if not peaceful, at least resigned and a little bit willing to see the needs of those who are close to her. Glynnis’s friends are, at first, attentive and supportive, offering to do “whatever I can to help.” Slowly, over the course of a year with cancer, the friends fade out of the picture. Only one neighbor, Linda-who-sells-Amway, a lady that Glynnis didn’t even like very much before the cancer, continues to accompany Glynnis to chemotherapy and bring tempting food and visit and be available. This desertion by friends leads to an interesting insight via Shep’s dad, Gabriel, who is a Presbyterian minister:

Shep: “People . . . her friends, even immediate family. They’ve –lots of them have deserted her. I’m embarrassed for them And this disappearing act so many folks have pulled, well, it hurts her feelings, even if she pretends she’s glad to be left alone. I’m very discouraged. I wonder if people have always been so–weak. Disloyal. Spineless.”

Gabriel: “Christians accept a duty to care for the sick. Most of my parishioners took that commitment seriously. Your secular friends only have their own consciences to prod them, and that’s not always enough. There’s no substitute for deeply held beliefs, son. They call you to your finest self. Tending the sick is hard work, and it’s not always pretty; I don’t need tell you that now. When you’re relying on some flimsy notion that coming by with a casserole would be thoughtful . . . that tuna bake may not make it to the oven.”

I would say, instead of “deeply held beliefs,” that there’s no substitute for the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and empowerment. But either way, this insight is amazing from the pen of an author who describes herself as a “poster girl for the secular” who “revile(s) religions of any description.” Of course, the Presbyterian minister in the story later lapses into atheism, and I will admit that Christians don’t always get it right in regard to caring for the sick and dying. But I would much rather depend on my church family to be there for me during my suffering times than a group of drinking buddies or even well-meaning coworkers and secular friends.

To summarize, I would say that, while Lionel Shriver is a good writer with much psychological insight into the motivations and justifications of people’s behavior, she does have an agenda. And it shows a little too much in So Much For That. I recommend We Need To Talk About Kevin, and if that’s a favorite with you, you might also enjoy reading So Much For That. Both books are a little heavy on the (married but graphic) sexual content, probably as a substitute for God, who gets short shrift in these books.

Best Intentions by Emily Listfield

Jun17

I think Best Intentions is a book about suspicion and misunderstanding. I can picture the book made into a movie by Afred Hitchcock. Jimmy Stewart stars as the easy-going financial reporter Sam Barkley. Mary Tyler Moore is his lovely, but worried wife, Lisa Barkley. (The kids have been watching a lot of Dick Van Dyke DVD’s lately.) Rita Hayworth or Marilyn Monroe co0stars as the enigmatic and stylish Deirdre, Lisa’s best friend.

The plot is fairly simple. Lisa’s worried about money and about her job. The PR firm where she works has been sold to another company out of Philadelphia, of all places, not a good thing for Lisa. Sam’s worried about his job, too; he hasn’t been able to break a big story in a good while. Then, bigger worries take over: Lisa finds evidence that Sam is having an affair. Eventually, as in most Hitchcock movies, a murder takes place. And readers, who have been trained through the first half of the book to be very suspicious of everyone in the novel, continue to sort through the lies and half-truths and misunderstandings to puzzle out whodunnit.

As I said, I think Best Intentions is about suspicion and family tensions and misunderstanding, and I also think the ending is somewhat ambiguous. If you’ve read Best Intentions, tell me, are you satisfied that the solution presented is whole story? Or was some else involved in the murder?

Shonda says: “At one point I truly felt for Lisa because I didn’t know who was telling the truth and who was not. I have to admit, after finishing the book and finally knowing Sam’s side of the story, I still had my doubts.”

Word Lily: “Listfield instills this woman about to turn 40 with all the angst and self-doubt of a coming-of-age tale.”

Ravenous Reader at Bookstack: “Best Intentions is described as a novel of ‘domestic suspense,’ a genre with which I wasn’t familiar, but which certainly describes what makes this book different from a typical thriller of mystery. Relationships are at the heart of the book – family, friends, and colleagues – and the assumptions we make about those whom we’re closest to.”

Recommended, if you’re OK with a sort of ambiguous ending that maybe wasn’t meant to be ambiguous.

The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson

Jun15

The Other Side of the Bridge is Mary Lawson’s second published novel, and it made me want to read her first, called Crow Lake. That’s a fair compliment.

It was the characters in The Other Side of the Bridge that made the book. The way the characters interacted and the author’s insight into their motivations reminded me of Marilynne Robinson’s twin novels, Gilead and Home. And that comparison is high praise indeed.

The plot is somewhat similar to Gilead and Home. The Other SIde of the Bridge has a prodigal son, Jake, best beloved by his mother, scorned as a useless wastrel by his father. Arthur, the older son, is his father’s right hand, the dependable, steady oldest son. Jake is a lot like the Biblical Jacob, always playing an angle, restless, never quite trustworthy. However, the story is told from Arthur’s point of view. And although the reader is 95% sure that Jake is the deadbeat that his father believes him to be, there’s that five percent of doubt or hope or wondering about what might have been. What if the father in the story had tempered the mother’s favoritism and indulgence with more loving discipline?What if the mother had been able to see that her son was headed for disaster and could have corrected him more effectively.? What if both Arthur and Jake had gone away to war? Would the army have changed them? In good ways or bad?

I think these same thoughts about my own children. What if we had not decided to homeschool them? Would they be different? Would their life choices be better or worse? What if we had not missed the deadline for Computer Guru Son to apply for a scholarship to the college he thought he wanted to attend? Would he be graduating from that college now instead of stuck in a holding pattern, unable to decide what he wants to do with his life? Would Unnamed Daughter have listened or rebelled if we had forbade her to be friends with that young man who turned out to be a heartbreaker just as we thought he might be? Are all of my children stronger because we allowed them more freedom than some homeschooling Christian families I know, or should we have protected them more and for a longer time?

I don’t know. I never will know. The Other Side of the Bridge is a book about choices and about how the decisions we make change us. It does feature the story of Arthur and Jake, but also the story of Ian Christopherson, a young man on the brink of adulthood who has his own decisions to make, relationships to resolve, and forgiveness to give. Part of the story is told from Ian’s point of view as he works on Arthur Deen’s farm and comes to an understanding of some of the family dynamics and history. As you can see from this post, I found the book thought-provoking.

Exposure by Mal Peet

Jun8

Wow! Carnegie Medal winner Mal Peet has written a different book about fame, much more sophisticated than Claim to Fame (see below). Inspired by Shakespeare’s Othello, this novel is focused, not so much on jealousy, but on the perils and tragedies of celebrity. Otello is a soccer star, a black man who’s just signed a contract with a team in the southern part of an unnamed South American country. Desmerelda is a white pop idol, and also the daughter of a powerful politician who happens to be one of the team’s owners. When Otello and Desmerelda fall in love, the spotlight of celebrity becomes so blindingly focused on every detail of their lives together that it becomes impossible for them to make any good decisions. And since, unbeknownst to either Dezi or Otello, the couple have an enemy who is willing to do whatever it takes to destroy them, well, it’s a tragedy of epic proportions.

A long time ago when I read Othello, I remember wondering why Iago was so intent on destroying Othello. Jealousy? Revenge against the world for slighting him? Monetary gain? I had the same question throughout this novel. As Otello’s evil enemy works his scheme to completely sabotage Dezi’s and Otello’s success and ruin their lives, he never tells us why he wants to destroy these superstars. Is it envy? Or money? Or has Otello done something to this man to make him angry and bitter? The ending of the book implies that the entire plot was a long con to gain more money for the evil Iago character, but it doesn’t make complete sense. “Iago” is already rich, and he seems to have some deeper motive for hating Dezi and Otello. I liked the fact that, just as in Shakepeare’s play, we never really know why this all had to happen.

In a tragedy the hero is supposed to have a “tragic flaw.” Shakepeare’s Othello is a jealous man, easily deluded by Iago’s lies. Otello in Exposure seems to be good man. He’s not jealous like his namesake or greedy and ambitious like Macbeth or imperious and full of pride like Lear. If anything, Peet’s Otello is a Hamlet, unable to decide what to do or whom to trust or to understand why he is caught in a web of deceit that will bring him to his ultimate disgrace and downfall.

It’s a sad, sort of hopeless, tragedy, and the parallel story about a trio of street kids whose lives become intertwined with those of Otello and Dezi is not much more hopeful. Bush, the street beggar, and his friend, Felicia, do have a bit of a happy ending, but it’s mixed with tragedy, too. Nevertheless, as much as I like to have a smidgen of optimism in my stories, this one feels right. It’s a jungle out there, and fame and celebrity are not a protection but rather an invitation to evil people to see what dirt they can find or manufacture to bring down the high and mighty. And great was the fall thereof.

If this one is eligible for the next round of the Cybils, I’m going to nominate it. It was published in Britain in 2008, but the U.S. edition came out in October, 2009, just on the cusp of the nomination period. It wasn’t nominated in 2008 or 2009. So I’ll have to see. But it would be a shame to have this one overlooked because it’s that good.

Other Shakespeare-inspired YA novels:
Hamlet, A Novel by John Marsden
Enter Three Witches by Caroline Cooney.
Ophelia by Lisa M. Klein.
Lady Macbeth’s Daughter by Lisa M. Klein.
The Third Witch: A Novel by Rebecca Reisert
Ophelia’s Revenge by Rebecca Reisert
Dating Hamlet: Ophelia’s Story by Lisa Fiedler
Romeo’s Ex: Rosaline’s Story by Lisa Fiedler.
Saving Juliet by Suzanne Selfors.
The Juliet Club by Suzanne Harper.
Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston.

Any additions to the list?

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

May15

I decided to go ahead and join the Books of the Century Challenge since I read three books from the first year of the century, 1900, while I was reading during Lent. Sister Carrie was published in 1900, but it wasn’t a best seller. In fact it almost didn’t get published at all. The novel was “excoriated by censors” who complained that the the title character, Carrie, was a sinner who seemed to benefit as a result of her fall from moral purity. “Why do the wicked prosper?” And, at least in fiction, according to the mores of the time, they shouldn’t.

At the beginning of the novel Carrie is “eighteen years of age, bright, timid, and full of the illusions of ignorance and youth.” She’s also poor, having only a few clothes and four dollars to her name.

“When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse.”

By the end of the novel, Carrie is rich, celebrated, famous, and unhappy—but neverthless filled with dreams and longing for beauty and delight.

In between, she stumbles from bad decision to another and wreaks havoc wherever she goes. In particular, Carrie is the ruin of one man who seduces her, and I suppose that the critics complained that for once the man is ruined by an illicit relationship rather than the woman. But Carrie isn’t really a scheming, designing gold digger. She’s a lamb, sort of, pushed into an illicit relationship by poverty, laziness, pride, and vanity. This essential weakness doesn’t justify her actions, but it does explain them.

Some of the situations in the novel were so well described: the slow descent into destitution of an unemployed man, the dissolution by degrees of a loveless marriage, the seduction of a young, vain girl, the enticement of life in the fast lane, and the emptiness of such a life. I thought this aspect of Dreiser’s novel, the realistic depiction of human weakness, was was quite well written. The jacket notes in my book say that critics disagree about the merits of Dreiser’s work. Some think him “the most important realist since Zola.” Others find him unskilled as a writer and his fatalistic view of man, depressing.

Sister Carrie reminds me of Joyce Carol Oates’ them (Semicolon review here), partly because of the Chicago setting, but also because of the cheap, degraded lives of both Oates’s and Dreiser’s characters. However, I found Carrie and her suitors and lovers much more believable and interesting than Oates’s “them”. Carrie may be a drifter and irredeemable by the end of the novel, but Dreiser nails the whole progression of sin and ruination, while Oates’s novel just felt like a rich/middle class girl going slumming. On the other hand, sin does make you stupid, but no one stays quite as innocently obtuse as Carrie does in this book. Maybe we just don’t get to read about the part where Carrie actually wakes up in the pigpen.

Trustee from the Toolroom by Nevil Shute

May13

I discovered Nevil Shute when I was reading books about and set in Australia a couple of years ago. Shute’s A Town Called Alice is justly well-known as an example of Australian flavor.
I also read the most famous of Shute’s books, the apocalyptic On the Beach, which gives a chilling picture of the world slowly dying as a result of a nuclear explosion and the resulting fallout.

I then began to look for more books by Mr. Shute, a popular and prolific author who lived from 1899-1960 and wrote over twenty novels. Shute’s full name was Nevil Shute Norway, and he was a successful aeronautical engineer as well as an author. His novels tend to feature mechanically inclined or engineer-types who are ordinary people sometimes placed in extraordinary circumstances. I would like to read all of the books that Shute wrote, but many of his novels are somewhat difficult to find. On the Beach and A Town Called Alice, maybe because both were made into movies, are readily available, but the others are not to be found in my library system. I looked and you can buy a used paperback copy of Trustee from the Toolroom on Amazon for $30.00. That’s a little rich for my blood. Some of his other novels are a bit more reasonably priced.

So I borrowed Trustee from the Toolroom from a local college library, and it’s unusual enough to be worth tracking down, if you’re looking for a clean, nineteen-fifties, adventure with a common middle class hero. Keith Stewart lives in West Ealing, a suburb of London, and he makes miniature mechanical models–clocks, steamboats, gas engines, locomotives and such– for a living. He also writes about his models for the Miniature Mechanic magazine.

I think my dad would have enjoyed this book. Daddy wasn’t much of a reader, but the details in the book about miniature engineering and about sailing and sailboats would have fascinated him. Mr. Stewart does end up in the midst of an adventure, even though he would seem to be the least likely suspect to become involved in any dangerous exploit. The themes of the book were courage, honor, the influence of steady heroism and everyday reliability, and the importance of the common man. But these themes are not emphasized in a heavy-handed way, just demonstrated as quietly as the fictional Mr. Stewart lives his life.

I suppose to some extent Trustee From the Toolroom is a guy-book, but I enjoyed it. I will admit to skimming some of the technical details of engineering and sailing, but I didn’t miss much. I’m definitely going to keep looking for more books by Nevil Shute Norway. He reminds me of some of my other favorite writers of the mid-twentieth century: Helen MacInnes, Alistair Maclean, even a touch of Rex Stout.

Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden

May12

A coterie of Anglican nuns comes to a remote Himalayan village to establish a convent, school, and hospital for the improvement and benefit of the natives. Instead of making any impression at all on the villagers, the nuns themselves are changed and brought to confront their deepest fears, desires, and inadequacies.

Simple enough to summarize, the novel can be read as simple and somewhat simplistic. When confronted by the great and inscrutable Mysteries of the East, Western Christian minds can only choose to give in and “go native” or be broken by the weight of all that cumulative Eastern wisdom. This truism would probably satisfy many readers of Godden’s novel.

However, it doesn’t satisfy me. I don’t really believe that a “bend or be broken” moral was all that Ms. Godden meant to convey in this novel either. The following conversation between Sister Adela and a Hindu prince that she is tutoring is key:

“Pantheism?” he cried, writing it down delightedly. “And that? How do you spell it and what is it?”
“Saying that God is in everything, animate and inanimate, in the trees and stones and streams.”
“That sounds very beautiful,” he said thoughtfully, “but it certainly isn’t true.”
Sister Adela was surprised. “Why are you so sure?” she asked.
“Because,” he said, “we can conquer trees and streams and stones; we can cut down the forest and dam the stream and break up the stones, but we can’t conquer God.”
“Now he,” he said pointing with his pen, “might very well be in the mountain. We call it Kanchenjungha, and we believe that God is there. No one can conquer that mountain, and they never will. Men can’t conquer God; they only go mad for the love of Him.”

Ms. Godden isn’t advocating mountain worship any more than the psalmist was: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.” Rather, the mountain is a symbol, a picture, of the invincibility and yes, the inscrutability of God Himself. When we come face to face with the Eternal we can either give up or go mad. When we recognize our own insignificance and inability to be anything, we can repent and be still or run screaming off the cliff. Job or Job’s wife?

There’s a movie version of Black Naricissus with Deborah Kerr as Mother Superior Clodagh. I’ll probably check it out even though I fear it may be a disappointment. Hollywood isn’t known for making deeply meaningful and subtle spiritual films.

Vittoria Cottage by D.E. Stevenson

May1

I’ve had several reading bloggers recommend the books of author D.E. Stevenson, an author I’d never heard of until I began reading blog reviews. So, when I was at the library the other day and happened upon a shelf of books by Ms. Stevenson, I decided to try one out. (Note: this is how publicity-via-blog works with me. A title or an author sits in the back of my mind until I decide one day to check it out of the library or buy it at the bookstore. This process may take a while.)

Anyway, Vittoria Cottage was first published in 1949, and it’s set in about that time period, post-WW II, in rural/village England. The setting and characters remind me a lot of Angela Thirkell’s (Semicolon mini-reviews of Private Enterprise and County Chonicle by Thirkell). In this particular book, Caroline Dering, a widow, lives in the village of Ashbridge in a cottage she inherited from her husband’s family. As the story progresses, various romantic entanglements come and go for Caroline’s children, James, Leda, and Bobbi, and for Caroline herself. The novel revolves around the characters rather than plot. The plot is fairly predictable, but the characters’ actions, feelings, and reactions are not so much so.

The fun part is that I know people just like those in the book. Leda is the chronic grumbler who thinks she will pleased and happy if this or that relationship works out or if she can just attend this or that event or travel or stay home or something. But everyone around her knows that nothing will really make her happy or make her stop complaining; it’s become a habit. Caroline is the peace-making mother who knows deep down inside that she doesn’t have the right words to make everything right for her grown children, but she wants so much to see them happy that she keeps on trying anyway. And although I identify with Caroline’s time of life (I, too, have adult children whom I would like to see make good decisions), I am more like Caroline’s sister, Harriet, an actress who says what she thinks and d–n the consequences. And everybody else in the family had better be ready to hear the truth as Harriet sees it!

Nevertheless, Vittoria Cottage is a gentle story. Even Harriet never becomes too painfully forthright. The family in the story love one another in spite of all their faults, and the ending is a model of sacrificial love between two sisters. Vitoria Cottage takes the reader back to a time in which daily life was hard in some ways, what with rationing and post-war regulations and a general shortage of almost everything, but in which life was also simpler and more, well, agreeable and gentle and village-like. It’s a time we can never return to really, but it’s nice to visit in a book.

If you read D.E. Stevenson and enjoy her books, you may want to visit the following blogs that project the same sense of community and simple living in a bygone era:

Coffee, Tea Books and Me by Brenda: A sojourner who desires to walk in the path God leads each day… who loves her family, books, coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon. (I think Brenda is one of the people who recommended Ms. Stevenson’s books.)

As I See It Now by Debra: I am the annoying happy homemaker type (and proud of it) who enjoys writing about her adventures with a husband and two cats in the empty nest phase of life.

La reine Margot, or Margeurite de Valois by Alexandre Dumas

Apr22

On Monday, the 18th of August, 1572, there was a splendid festival at the Louvre.

The court was celebrating the marriage of Madame Marguerite de Valois, daughter of Henry II and sister of KIng Charles IX, with Henry de Bourbon, King of Navarre.

So this novel is Dumas’ fictional version of the life and times of Marguerite de Valois. It’s about the enmity between the Catholics (led and symbolized by Catherine de Medici and her son Charles) and the Huguenots (Marguerite’s new husband, Henry Bourbon was a Protestant.). It’s about the paradoxes and contradictions of politics. Catherine and her son arranged this marriage of the Catholic Marguerite to the Huguenot Henry, but they also arranged the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre six days after the wedding, which was supposed to have been a peace-making political marriage.

Alas, this bloodbath of a beginning to Marguerite’s married life was only a harbinger of things to come. Her marriage to Henry of Nvarre was an unhappy one, and both spouses were unfaithful to the other. The story includes slaughter, poisoning, attempted assassination, political intrigue, and general nastiness. The book ends before Henry of Navarre became King of France, which he did eventually, but it’s already obvious at the end of the novel that Henry and Marguerite were not meant to be together, and indeed they lived apart for much of their marriage.

Catherine de Medici is the arch-villainess of this piece, plotting and finagling behind the scenes in the novel to bring down Henry and in the process, her own daughter Marguerite, in order to make sure that Catherine de Medici’s third son, Henry, becomes the next king of France. In the meantime, Marguerite is busily bringing about her own downfall by pursuing a Protestant soldier lover named La Mole. Henry also takes a mistress, and there’s hardly anyone in the book worthy of admiration or sympathy. However, if you enjoy a good story of royal intrigue and political maneuvering, Marguerite de Valois is your book.

You can read the book (in English) here.
Or here, if you’re up to reading it in French.

Visit The Classics Circuit for more Dumas this week and next.

An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson

Apr16

I love Josephine Tey’s mystery novels. I’m especially fond of Daughter of Time, her solution to the mystery of who killed the Princes in the Tower (not Richard III, according to Tey’s detective work). The novel, featuring Inspector Alan Grant practicing his detecting skills from a hospital bed, is a tour de force, a combination of murder mystery and historical fiction, with quite a bit of actual history thrown in.

I’m also a fan of The Franchise Affair, in which a young girl alleges that a middle-aged spinster and her elderly mother held her captive for weeks, while the mother and daughter deny ever having made the girl’s acquaintance. Who’s telling the truth? The reader is kept guessing until the very end of the book.

And Ms. Tey’s other mysteries are all good reads. So when I read over a year ago that author Nicola Upson had written a mystery with Josephine Tey as the main character and sleuth, I knew I would either like it very much or hate it. Not that I knew very much about the Josephine Tey outside of her books. It turns out that Tey’s real name was Elizzabeth Macintosh, and that she used yet another pseudonym, Gordon Daviot, for the plays she wrote. She worte and had produced several plays, the most successful of which was RIchard of Bordeaux, about Richard II, the play that made actor John Gielgud famous.

An Expert in Murder takes place during the final weeks of the run of Richard of Bordeaux in London. Tey is travelling to London to “see the play off” as it ends its run in London and prepares to go on tour through the country. On the train, Ms. Tey meets a young fan, Elspeth SImmons, and . . . well, the game’s afoot, and murder happens fairly quickly.

I vacillated while reading An Expert in Murder. The writing has aspirations to being literary, and it’s rather succesful in that attempt, remiding me of P.D. James. However the plot bogged down a bit in the middle, and I figured out a lot of the secrets before they were actually revealed. Then, the murderer and the reasons behind the murder were revealed, and there were still two more (long) chapters to go in the novel. What more could be said?

One of those two final chapters proved to be an unbelievably calm discussion of the history of the murderer’s accomplice as Tey rationally and unsuccessfully tried to talk said accomplice into surrending to the police instead of committing suicide. The final chapter of the book explored the relational vissicitudes of Tey and her gentleman friend, Inspector Archie Penrose. As far as I know the real Tey didn’t have a policeman boyfriend, but as a fictional device, it works just fine. The villain in the piece is Evil without redeeming character qualities, but maybe that’s to be desired in this sort of book rather than manipulating the reader into sympathizing with the murderer as some authors do.

On the whole I liked the book, and I’d like to try out the next book in the series, Angel With Two Faces, published last year. This second mystery featuring the fictional Tey and her friend Penrose is set not in London, but in Cornwall, and it starts off with a (horse)riding accident, very Tey-ish.