On the Lighter Side

Four mini-mentions from the crime & psy.thriller library shelves.

The Crooked House by Christobel Kent

Alison has put her past behind her and lives a very quiet life which is exactly how she likes it. Until a wedding invitation takes her back to the coastal village where she once lived.
When her name was Esme.
Where she was left the only survivor of a terrible tragedy.
Now Alison must confront the past and seek the truth of what happened.
I loved The Crooked House. It has everything I like in a psychological thriller - an atmospheric, slightly spooky setting, a fast pace with a continuous escalation of tension and suspense. Hard to put down!


The Winter Foundlings by Kate Rhodes

Taking a break from her London life psychologist Alice Quentin has the opportunity to study treatment methods at Northwood high-security hospital. One of the inmates is child killer Louis Kinsella and when young girls begin going missing and are later found dead a link is suspected between him and the murders. Alice is once again called in to help the police.
This is the third in this series and having enjoyed the first two I was looking forward to this one and it didn't disappoint. Well-written and suspenseful.

The Girl on the Train


Every morning Rachel takes the same train and every morning the train stops at the same signal and Rachel watches the same couple. She fantasizes about what she imagines their perfect life to be and compares it to her less than happy existence. 

I tend to avoid over-hyped books like this one but have to admit it was easy, and at times compulsive, reading but I also found it too repetitive and lacking in the surprise twists I expected. It wasn't that hard to see where it was going. Good but not great!

The Mangle Street Murders by M.R.C.Kasasian

March Middleton is the ward of London's most famous personal detective, Sidney Grice and she is determined to help on his next case. He thinks women are too feeble for detective work but soon discovers how mistaken he is.
Set in Victorian London this new detective  series strikes a perfect balance between the relationship of a duo constantly at loggerheads and an interesting and complex criminal investigation . Original and very funny I enjoyed it immensely and look forward to bringing home the second book very soon 

Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart

1956

First published in 1956 Wildfire at Midnight was Mary Stewart's second novel and one in which she attempted to create something different - a classic closed room detective story. It was an experiment she would not repeat explaining in a 1970 article that the emphasis on mystery was not for her - she preferred people to plot. 

In the years to come her books would become known and loved for their perfect balance of romance and mystery set in exotic locations and with that in mind I wouldn't recommend Wildfire at Midnight to anyone just beginning their acquaintance with Mary Stewart. It is high on suspense and low on romance which suited me fine as I love the former and am happy to go without the latter. An added bonus was discovering I hadn't read it before.

Camosunary Bay, Skye

In need of a holiday from her busy life as a model and tired of the crowds pouring into London for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, Gianetta sets out for a quiet interlude on the Isle of Skye. To her horror one of the guests at the hotel is her ex-husband, Nicholas. Even worse is the strange tension existing among the other guests. Very soon she discovers that recently the body of a local girl had been found murdered on the mountainside and all her fellow residents are considered as suspects.

Then two more murders occur and a young woman is missing. A killer is on the loose and suggestions of ancient Druidic rituals and sacrifice only add to the escalating fear and suspicions of everyone.

Mary Stewart's choice of setting for this novel is superb. Usually her descriptions of lavender fields and sunflowers, red-roofed tavernas and sun-kissed seas have me sighing with longing to visit these magical places. I have no desire to go to the Isle of Skye. An island of rugged but barren grandeur, with treacherous bogs and blinding mists holds little appeal for me but is used to full effect by the author to create a real sense of atmosphere and foreboding.

Blaven

There the crest of the mountain stands up above the scree in an enormous hog's-back of serrated peaks, two thousand feet and more of grim and naked rock, shouldering up the scudding sky. I stopped and looked up. Streams of windtorn mist raced and broke around the buttresses of the dreadful rock; against its sheer precipices the driven clouds wrecked themselves in swirls of smoke; and black and terrible, above the movement of the storm, behind the racing riot of black cloud, loomed and vanished and loomed again the great devil's pinnacles that broke the sky and split the winds into streaming rack. Blaven flew its storms like a banner."

Gianetta finds herself in terrible danger which reaches its peak in a terrifying chase through the mist enshrouded bog. The suspense was edge-of-the-chair, nailbiting stuff that kept me frantically turning pages until the end and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

From excessive cigarette smoking to outdated attitudes that rile up the feminists, Wildfire at Midnight does show its age which I know many readers don't like but for me it is all part of the charm and the pleasure of returning to a different time.

I read Wildfire at Midnight as part of Mary Stewart Reading Week hosted by Anbolyn @ Gudrun's Tights.

Also adding the link to R.I.P. IX

I Love Literary Allusions

I've been reading A Taste for Death by P.D.James. It's been a long time since I enjoyed one of her novels and I'm wondering if, in the past, I ever took much notice of the way she is constantly bringing other authors into her story. I doubt it but this time the literary allusions delighted me and added a whole new dimension to the reading experience.

Appropriate for Austen in August -

"'His temper might, perhaps, be a little soured by finding, like many others of his sex, that through some unaccountable bias in favour of beauty he was the husband of a very silly woman' 'Pride and Prejudice, Mr Bennett.'

'Sense and Sensibility, Mr Palmer. And when one meets Barbara Berowne the bias doesn't seem so unaccountable.' 

'Sense and Sensibility? Are you sure? 

The scene of the murder is St Matthew's Church, Paddington where the bodies of Sir Paul Berowne, recently retired Minister of the Crown and Harry Mack, an alcoholic vagrant, are found in the vestry with their throats brutally slashed. An unhappy event for the dispirited Father Barnes , already struggling to cope with the disdain of some of his new parish .

"His most recent library book had been a Barbara Pym. He had read with envious disbelief the gentle and ironic story of a village parish where the curates were entertained, fed, and generally spoilt by the female members of the congregation. Mrs McBride would soon put a stop to anything like that at St Matthews. Indeed, she had put a stop to it."

The bodies were discovered by Miss Emily Wharton , a lonely 65-yr-old spinster whose life revolves around her Wednesdays and Fridays, dusting the chairs and doing the flowers at St Matthew's. She could have stepped straight out of a Pym novel.

Solving the case is in the hands of Commander Adam Dalgleish, a detective with a love of architecture and a talent for writing poetry, and his team, the upper-crust DCI Massingham and, new to the scene, DI Kate Miskin, a working class girl determined to succeed. She has a boyfriend who she asks to recommends books..

"At present her bedtime reading was Elizabeth Bowen. The life of her heroines, their private incomes, their charming houses in St John's Wood, their uniformed parlourmaids and formidable aunts, above all the sensitivity of their emotions amazed her. 'Not enough washing-up, that's their trouble,'she told Alan, having in mind the author as well as her characters.

At over 600 pages A Taste for Death has a great deal more depth than an ordinary police procedural crime novel. Tension and conflict between social classes is one of the major themes in the book, not only simmering between Kate and Massingham, but coming to the boil within the family of Paul Berowne and their servants, none of whom are very pleasant people. As the investigation proceeds ugly and dangerous secrets are exposed beneath the veneer of prosperous gentility.

It was perfect reading for a very wet winter weekend and I will be reading more P D James. Loved it!

A Century of Books ( 1986) 

Favourite Crime/Suspense/Thrillers 2012

'Tis the season for lists so here are the best from the Crime Fiction genre I read in 2012. 

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny (2012)

Broken Harbour by Tana French (2012)

The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye (2012)

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012)

Collecting Cooper by Paul Cleave (2012)

The Water Room by Christopher Fowler (2008)

Phantom by Jo Nesbo (2012)

Black Flowers by Steve Mosby (2011)

The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill (2010)

Gone by Mo Hayder (2010)

The Black Path by Asa Larsson (2008)

Dead Scared by S.J.Bolton (2012)

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

A classic ghost story which begins with the traditional telling of ghost stories on Christmas Eve by the stepsons of Arthur Kipps. Stories that have an increasingly unsettling affect on him and when asked to contribute he refuses and leaves the house.

" Yes, I had a story, a true story, a story of haunting and evil, fear and confusion, horror and tragedy. But it was not a story to be told for casual entertainment, around the fireside on Christmas Eve."

 In the hope of freeing himself from his past experience Arthur decides to write his story down.

He tells of a time when,as a young solicitor, he was sent to a remote village by his employer to attend the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow, an elderly recluse who lived at Eel Marsh House which stood isolated from the village at the end of a causeway. The sense of unease he feels when he sees a wasted young woman, dressed all in black, at the funeral, is heightened by the villagers reluctance to talk of her and their efforts to dissuade him from spending the night at Eel Marsh House. 

Although no definite time period is indicated the writing has a late Victorian/Edwardian style reminiscent of ghostly tales of that era.
With great restraint the author provides a setting with a menacing Gothic atmosphere...............thick London pea-soup fog and drifting marsh mists, a grim and desolate old house, graveyards and abbey ruins........and a woman in black with an expression of 'a desperate, yearning malevolence.'

It has the effect of placing one firmly in Arthur's shoes, sharing the increasingly mysterious and frightening experiences that his rational mind can't explain..... feeling the slowly mounting terror as the story of the woman in black is gradually revealed.

The ending is devastating!

For me, the perfect ghost story. I loved it!

R.I.P VII

September Crime Fiction x 3

A quick mention for three titles by three favourite crime/suspense authors .

Broken Harbour by Tana French

Detective Mick Kennedy is all about control - everything he does is designed to show he is in charge.

The seaside community of Broken Harbour holds happy memories of childhood holidays.......it also holds some of his worst memories.

Now called Briansville it is an abandoned, half-finished property development that became a victim of the economic crash.

When a family is discovered attacked and left for dead in their own home Mick Kennedy and his rookie partner are sent to catch a killer.

Tana French follows her standard format of bringing forward a minor character from a previous novel and placing them in the limelight. It works very well , allowing the combination of police procedure and the investigation of a murder with the psychological study of deeply flawed characters. Wonderfully vivid and atmospheric prose, a dark and intense story of broken dreams and shattered lives - loved it! Fantastic reading!

Finders Keepers by Belinda Bauer

At the height of summer a dark shadow falls across Exmoor. Children are being stolen. Each disappearance is marked only by a terse note - " You don't love him."

Policeman Jonas Holly faces a precarious journey into the warped mind of the kidnapper if he's to stand any chance of catching him. But - still reeling from a personal tragedy - is Jonas up to the task.

This is Belinda Bauer's third crime thriller set in the village of Shipcott and as many of the characters are recurring I would suggest reading this series from the beginning. The plot is inventive and suspenseful but it is the humour that really makes these books stand out from others in this genre. The events of the previous two titles are constantly referred to which can become annoying and I would like to see Belinda Bauer move away from this setting now.

Good......but not great!

Phantom by Jo Nesbo

Former police inspector Harry Hole has returned to Oslo after three years in Hong Kong and requests permission to investigate a homicide case the police already consider closed. Harry has a personal interest in the young man presumed guilty and very soon finds himself entangled in the corruption of Oslo's drug world.

With its central theme of drugs and the damage and heartache they cause Phantom has a more serious tone than some of Jo Nesbo's 'killer thrillers' but is no less of a page turner. Gripping, compelling and with a completely unexpected twist at the end it's a powerful read and completely lived up to my expectations. 

I've been reading.....crime fiction

A quick mention for two crime suspense novels I had on hand for commercial breaks while watching the Olympics.

Collecting Cooper by Paul Cleave

Cooper Riley, a psychology professor, doesn't make it to work one day. Emma Green, one of his students, doesn't make it home. When ex-cop Theodore Tate is released from a four-month prison term, he's begged by Emma's father to help find his daughter. What neither of them knows is that a former mental patient is holding people prisoner as part of his growing serial killer souvenirs.

A New Zealand crime fiction author, Paul Cleave writes darkly disturbing thrillers with macabre twists and gruesome events that make for compelling reading........if you like that sort of thing. I do and this is one of the best I've read for a while. Recommended!

The Black Path by Asa Larsson

The frozen body of a woman is found in a fishing hut on a frozen lake in the far north of Sweden. The body is quickly identified, raising hopes of an open-and-shut case. But when a six-month-old suicide suicide is disinterred, Rebecka Martinsson and Anna-Maria Mella find themselves investigating corruption at the heart of one of Sweden's biggest mining companies.

First-rate Scandinavian crime fiction which combines investigation into a murder with the back story of the victim and her close relationships and their involvement with corruption in a mining company with interests in Uganda. A complex story and not as fast-paced as the other book I read by this author but I really enjoyed it. Also recommended!

The Gods of Gotham - Gone Girl

These two books have had plenty of attention so I'll just give them a quick mention..............loved them both!

The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye

New York City, 1845.......when a fire wipes out his home, his savings and his workplace, Timothy Wilde  becomes a 'copper star', a member of the newly formed police force. He is assigned to the Sixth Ward, a poor area where crime is rampant and the ever-growing number of immigrants struggle to survive, and soon becomes involved in the hunt for a child killer.

I have to confess I saw this book on the library shelves several times but never got further than the title. The only thing I associated Gotham with was Batman so I was sure it wouldn't be for me. Last month I picked it up and the blurb on the back convinced me to give it a try........and it was fantastic! 

I loved the writing - the author has a wonderfully descriptive turn of phrase that made the sights, sounds and smells of 19th century New York very real. I had much to learn about the politics and corruption within the city and those real excerpts from newspapers and articles of the time at the beginning of the chapters were chilling. I had no idea that the feeling against Roman Catholics was so strong.
I enjoyed the central crime story but it was the historical background that made reading The Gods of Gotham so worthwhile.
I recommend!

 Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

 On the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne's wife Amy suddenly disappears.


These days I tend to avoid overly-hyped titles but I am a lover of psychological suspense stories so this one did intrigue me. I was fortunate that the first mention of it in Google reader was a post from a blogger who suggested the less one knows about Gone Girl before reading, the better. Excellent advice that I'm glad I listened to, I ignored all reviews and for once the hype didn't lead to disappointment.

Dark, twisted and diabolically clever. A first rate psychological suspense thriller that will keep you guessing all the way through!
Enough said! Loved it!

Let the Devil Sleep by John Verdon

I've been a fan of John Verdon since reading his first thriller Think of a Number back in 2010 and then his second Shut Your Eyes Tight last year so I'm eagerly awaiting his latest...

 Let the Devil Sleep by John Verdon

Crown Publishing

Release date 24th July, 2012

464p

Let the Devil Sleep finds Dave Gurney in bad shape. It’s been a few months since he solved the infamous Jillian Perry murder case, but the physical and mental damage he sustained during those hellish days has taken its toll. Seeing Gurney falling deeper and deeper into a depression, Madeleine Gurney will do anything to help her husband get back to his old self—even if that means taking on a new case. So when Connie Clarke, the journalist whose New York magazine story turned Gurney into the superstar detective of the NYPD, calls to ask a favor of Gurney, it’s Madeleine who encourages him to help. As Connie explains, her daughter Kim is about to graduate from journalism school, and her final project, a documentary about the families of murder victims, has captured the interest of a major television network. Kim has been interviewing the families of the victims of “the Good Shepherd.” A serial killer who began his killing spree a decade earlier, the Good Shepherd claimed six lives in a series of bizarre roadside shootings and then disappeared; and now RAM-TV wants to mark the ten-year anniversary of the murders with Kim’s series, entitled The Orphans of Murder. Kim is looking for a consultant, someone with a professional background in police work to provide some needed guidance and credibility, and Connie is hoping Gurney might take on the task. 

Gurney reluctantly agrees, but as soon as he becomes involved, peculiar things start to happen. There is an odd problem with the brake on his tractor, he hears strange noises in the night, and he finds a razor-sharp hunting arrow in Madeleine’s flower bed. As events take a more threatening turn, Gurney takes a closer look at the Good Shepherd case—and quickly finds himself at odds with the FBI’s core conclusions. As he probes deeper, uncovering serious discrepancies, he arouses the ire of the original investigatory team and turns some former allies into enemies. 

His most dangerous enemy of all, however, turns out to be the Good Shepherd himself. Though no one wants to believe it, the once dormant serial killer appears to have come back to life—and this time his sights are set on Gurney.

About the author:

John Verdon, a former Manhattan advertising executive, lives with his wife in the mountains of upstate New York.

 www.JohnVerdon.net

 http://www.facebook.com/authorjohnverdon

Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

Having read several raving five-star reviews I was rather pleased to find this book on the library shelf. There is nothing I like more for the relaxing part of my reading than a good psychological suspense and so far this year they seem to be few and far between. I had high hopes!

The story begins with a short prologue telling of a murder and an excerpt from a trial transcript. From these the reader knows exactly who the bad guy is and what he is capable of.


The first person narrative is confusing at the start because it jumps very quickly (sometimes less than a page) between two time periods - 2003 & 2007 - but once I became used to it I felt it worked well at keeping the pace fast and building the suspense although the suspense would have doubled if I hadn't had the information from the prologues.
  
2003 is the Before - Cathy is a twenty-something with a good job and good friends. She has also been single long enough to know a good catch when she sees one and Lee is gorgeous, charismatic and spontaneous. 

2007 is the After -  four years after Cathy discovered the dark,controlling side of Lee and suffered horribly at his hands. Always fearful for her safety she works but has no social life. She suffers from OCD which manifests in compulsive security checks. She's completely alone........until a nice young man moves into the flat upstairs.

I found it difficult to relate to the Before Cathy. I don't understand why an intelligent young woman would want to spend her evenings pubbing, clubbing, binge drinking, swearing, vomiting on public pavements and sleeping with anyone and everyone. Nor do I particularly want to read about it - a lifestyle chosen by the author because it would highlight how very different the After Cathy is, perhaps.

As the story of her abusive relationship unfolds it would have been impossible not to feel for Cathy. The confusion and fear, the terrible sense of being isolated and helpless when her friends desert her are heartbreaking. She emerges from the experience a different person, alone , trusting no one and unable to control the OCD. The author does a superb job portraying a woman caught in the cycle and aftermath of abuse .

I didn't like that about half-way through it began very repetitive, alternating between descriptions of endless sexual encounters and the security checks. Repetition is boring and the time would have been better spent on exploring Cathy's friendship with Sylvia and why she acted as she did.

So, I'm in the minority with my opinion on this one. Parts of it are very good but it had weaknesses that for me prevented it from being anywhere close to a 5 Star read. 

Death on the Downs by Simon Brett

It wasn't the rain that upset Carole Seddon during her walk on the West Sussex Downs. It wasn't the dilapidated barn in which she was forced to seek shelter. No, what upset her was the human skeleton she discovered there, neatly packed into two blue fertiliser bags.


Death on the Downs is the second in Simon Brett's Fethering series which now numbers 13 books, of which I'd read the grand total of none.

Carole Seddon is a 50+ woman, formerly employed at the Home Office, but having taken early retirement lives in the seaside town of Fethering. Her friend Jude lives next door. After Carole's discovery of the bones it doesn't take long for these two amateur sleuths to be come unofficially involved in the investigation. I enjoyed the personality differences between the proper Carole and the more free-spirited Jude but overall not a particularly memorable mystery.

It's a cozy mystery which I seldom read but I was struggling to find a book that would fit a challenge category so was quite happy to let it entertain me on a cold winter's Sunday. 


 What's In A Name Challenge 5 - a topographical feature in the title

An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd

This weekend I took a break from reading Victorian and whizzed through the second book of this series featuring amateur sleuth and WWI nurse, Bess Crawford. I read the first A Duty to the Dead earlier this year.

It is the summer of 1917 and once again Bess has returned to England from the trenches of France with a group of severely wounded men, including a pilot who clings to a photo of his wife. While passing through a London train station, Bess notices a woman bidding an emotional farewell to an officer. Then she realizes that it is the woman in the photo, but the man is not her husband.
Back in France, Bess learns that later on that same day ,the woman had been murdered. Granted leave to talk to Scotland Yard, Bess's natural curiosity soon has her caught up in the hunt for a killer.

Easy, relaxing reading with a mystery that has a sad story at its heart and enough twists to keep this reader's attention. 
The story follows Bess as she moves between France and England - I did think she seems able to get leave from her duties a bit too easily!

I've always appreciated the ability the American mother/son author duo has in creating a wonderfully atmospheric English background and An Impartial Witness is no exception. Whether it's the damp, foggy streets of a London or a village fete I can imagine the surroundings and enjoy the glimpse of British life of the era.
So I was a little disappointed that the parts set in France didn't have the same effect and left me feeling detached from, what I imagine,  the horrors of a WWI field hospital were really like. And I'm sure Bess's experiences would result in more than her feeling 'a bit tired.'

Minor quibbles - I still liked it enough to know I'll read the next in the series.

Little Star by John Ajvide Lindqvist

When embittered ex-pop-star Lennart Cederstrom finds a baby left for dead in a plastic bag, he is uncertain what to do - until he hears her cry. It is a clear, haunting, perfectly pitched note, and Lennart decides she will be his project. A child raised in isolation: the vehicle for a pure, uncorrupted music.
But like any girl brought up in a basement, young Theres turns out to have a few idiosyncrasies. Dangerous ones!!

John Ajvide Lindqvist is a great storyteller and I particularly liked his last book Harbour with its mix of crime and supernatural horror. In Little Star he has done away with the supernatural but kept the horror and unfortunately it didn't work for me.

The first part of the story tells of Theres childhood years - unpleasant people doing unpleasant things but weird enough  to keep it in the realms of make believe. Then it stops abruptly and gruesomely and suddenly we meet 'the other girl.'

Theresa is an ordinary teenager from a nice ordinary family. Unfortunately she is plain, overweight and the victim of bullying. She expresses her anger and feelings of isolation by writing inflammatory comments on internet forums and it is here she makes contact with Theres, who has recently gained attention through her performances as an Idol contestant. The two girls form a friendship that will prove to be a lethal combination.

That I could not like this book was because of the subject matter. It seemed that everything nasty in today's world , bullying, the abuse of the internet, exploitation for monetary gain right through to murder , takes centre stage and nowhere in sight is there any power for good to provide balance. For me, too dark and disturbing .....too so horror -ably possible......too ugly!


What's In a Name Challenge 5 - something you'd see in the sky.
I Want More Challenge

Under the Dome by Stephen King

Engrossing and entertaining!


A chunkster and a compelling story was what I needed for the ten day period from Easter Friday on when I had a house full of children and grandchildren and reading time was limited and sporadic. Under the Dome was the perfect choice!

It begins, in a very gory and gruesome way,  on a bright Autumn morning in the small Maine town of Chester's Mill. Suddenly an invisible barrier descends - a woodchuck is cut in half; a gardener's hand is severed; a plane explodes in flame and Dale Barbara, Iraq war veteran turned short-order cook, is forced to turn back into the town he so desperately needed to leave.

As the townsfolk grow increasingly concerned about what has cut them off from the rest of the world the armed forces outside try desperately to find a solution to it. Like any disaster the situation brings out the best and worst in the community and a battle between good and evil begins. Barbara leads the good guys but faces tough opposition in Big Jim Rennie, the man who holds the town firmly in his grip. An evil  monster of a man he very quickly recruits every hoon and hellion into his 'police force' and will stop at nothing to achieve his aims.

As food, electricity and water run short and children begin to have terrifying premonitions Barbara knows he's in race against time to save those living under the dome.


With a huge cast of characters and several sub-plots there is never a dull moment and the pace is fast all the way. I haven't read many of Stephen King's later books but this one reminded me of his earlier work which I loved decades ago.
Great holiday reading and I enjoyed it immensely.

The Stephen King Project

Gone by Mo Hayder

Evening is closing in as Bristol murder detective Jack Caffery arrives to interview the victim of a car-jacking. He's dealt with routine car thefts before, but this one is different. This car was taken by force. And on the back seat was a passenger. An eleven-year-old girl who is still missing.
Before long the jacker starts to communicate with the police and Caffery knows he's going to do it again. Soon the jacker will choose another car with another child on the back seat!

A first rate crime thriller!

 Jack Caffery is a very good detective and one who has always relied on his intuition. When it comes to cases involving missing children he also feels a strong personal connection because of his brother who disappeared many years ago. As the investigation progresses his instincts tell him something is badly wrong. The jacker is clever, taunting the police and the children's families with letters and somehow always manages to stay one step ahead of the law.

Gone is the fifth in a series featuring Jack Caffery but the fact that I haven't read any of them was not a worry and the book can easily be read as a standalone. Jack and his colleague, Flea Marley, head of the Underwater Search Unit, obviously have a past and enough of the back story is given to understand why the present misunderstanding exists while also providing an interesting secondary theme.

I loved the presence of The Walking Man, a tramp-like mystic who wanders the countryside looking for the grave of his lost daughter. Often Jack will seek him out and a night spent talking with him and sleeping under the stars helps Jack find the answers to what troubles him.

Gone makes compelling reading - nail-biting suspense and the unexpected twists and turns of the police investigation are balanced well with a sympathetic portrayal of grieving and despairing parents.

I recommend.

The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart

“But being an unmarried woman, with the handicap of my sex, my first acquaintance with crime will probably be my last. Indeed, it came near enough to being my last acquaintance with anything.” 

Middle-aged maiden aunt Rachel Innes is persuaded by her niece and nephew, Gertrude and Halsey, to rent a house in the country for the summer. She moves in with her maid, Liddy, and on the second night a man is found murdered , the beginning of a series of very strange events and more unexplained deaths.

Rachel makes a delightful narrator. A sensible but stubborn woman she also has a keen sense of humour and I particularly enjoyed the interaction between her and the nervous and prone-to hysterics Liddy. I don't imagine that in that era it was quite the done thing to call one's maid a best friend but after decades together and knowing each other inside out, that is what they are.

Published in 1908 I was surprised at the clear and simple writing style so unlike the wordiness of  many Victorian/Edwardian authors. The story romps along non-stop through an endless variety of scenarios - spooky knocking in the walls at night, secret passages, bank fraud, kidnapping and abandoned children. There's never a dull moment and it's makes very entertaining reading.

The first book I've read by this popular vintage mystery author and it won't be the last.


Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge - Golden Girls

A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd

At the outbreak of WWI, independent-minded Bess Crawford follows in her officer father's footsteps and volunteers for duty. She serves in the nursing corps and goes from the battlefields of France to the doomed hospital ship Britannic. On one voyage she grows fond of the young, gravely wounded Lieutenant Arthur Graham and promises to deliver a message to his brother after his death.

But when Bess arrives at the Graham house in Kent, Jonathan Graham listens to his brother's last wishes with surprising indifference. Unsettled by this, Bess is about to take her leave when sudden tragedy envelops her. She quickly discovers that fulfilling this duty to the dead has trust her into a maelstrom of intrigue and murder that will endanger her own life and test her courage as not even war has.

A Duty to the Dead is the first in the series featuring Bess Crawford by the American mother/son duo who write as Charles Todd. I've enjoyed several of the Ian Rutledge series and am always surprised at how well they create such an evocative English atmosphere.

Bess Crawford is one of the new type of women who would emerge after WWI. She's practical and independent and perfectly capable of looking after herself. She becomes involved in the mystery surrounding Arthur Graham's brother, not because she has any desire to be a sleuth but from a natural curiosity and a strong  dislike of injustice.

The story begins with the sinking of the Britannic which leaves Bess with a broken arm, symbolic of so much  that has been broken, physically , mentally and emotionally. In the quiet Kentish village she visits, the occupants mourn the fathers and sons who will never return and struggle to cope with the maimed and shell-shocked victims who have come back. The vicar ....

"...mended his church because he couldn't mend the broken lives and minds brought to him for comfort."

 I really liked the historical background and the many secondary characters who added depth and interest to the story. The mystery had enough twists to hold my attention - easy, pleasant reading and I enjoyed it.