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cimorene1558's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed these, good mysteries and good writing about country people.
slferg's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
fictionfan's review against another edition
4.0
A twofer...
For some reason, the British Library has given us a double helping in this volume, with two full-size novels both starring Inspector Littlejohn.
The Dead Shall Be Raised 4 stars
This is set during WW2 and tells the story of a murder that happened twenty years earlier, during WW1. Inspector Littlejohn has travelled to Yorkshire to spend Christmas with his wife, who is living there to get away from the bombing of London. But no sooner has he arrived than a corpse is dug up, and is soon identified as Enoch Sykes, a young man who disappeared twenty years ago at the same time as his one-time friend Jerry Trickett was found shot dead. The assumption was that Enoch had killed Jerry in a fight over a girl and then fled. But now it appears the case is more complicated and Inspector Littlejohn is happy to work alongside the local police to investigate. Soon it becomes clear that more than one of the locals had reason to resent Enoch and Littlejohn will have to use all his skills to find the murderer.
The book starts off with Littlejohn travelling to Yorkshire by train, immediately giving a great feeling for the restrictions and difficulties of getting around during the war. Once in the village of Hatterworth, the descriptive writing is equally good and we are taken into village life straight away as the Littlejohns attend the parish carol service. When the investigation gets underway we are introduced to the other characters, and Bellairs makes each of them believable, from the old innkeeper who saw the two victims on the night of the crime, to the retired policeman who carried out the original investigation, to old Mrs Sykes, Enoch’s mother, and at the other end of the social scale, Mrs Myles, once their employer. It is deep midwinter, and Bellairs makes us feel the snow and bitter cold as the detectives trudge around talking to witnesses and suspects.
I did enjoy this, but somehow it didn’t completely catch fire for me. It’s very well written and although the pool of suspects is small, the solution is more complex than it first appears that it might be. I think it was maybe that Littlejohn, though likeable enough and certainly good at his job, is a bit bland. I didn’t get much of a feel for what he was thinking or feeling, or of what kind of man he was. That felt a bit strange since all the secondary characters were so well drawn, so it may be that Bellairs was assuming his readers would already know all about Littlejohn from previous books – this, I believe, was the 4th in the series. A 4-star read, then, but it certainly left me keen enough to want to read the other book...
The Murder of a Quack 4 stars
Since I’m never keen about reading books in the same series immediately after each other, I left a gap of a few months before reading this second one, and found I fell back into the author’s world very happily and was pleased to meet up with Inspector Littlejohn again, so clearly he’d left a better long-term impression than I initially thought he would.
Nathaniel Wall, an elderly, well-regarded bonesetter, is found murdered in his surgery. He has been strangled, then hanged in an attempt to make it look like suicide. The local police promptly call in Inspector Littlejohn of the Yard. This gets off to a great start again, as Bellairs describes the local policeman enjoying a rare moment of peace and then being called out to investigate when Wall’s housekeeper returns from an overnight visit to her sister to find the surgery door locked. Bellairs is really good at creating an atmosphere from the beginning, which immediately leaves the reader wanting to know what happened.
The idea of the bonesetter intrigued me too – something I haven’t come across before. This is again set during WW2 (though the war has no relevance to the plot), before the creation of the National Health Service and before medicine became so strictly regulated. Today we’d think of Wall as an osteopath primarily, though he also dips into other fields of medicine including the more “alternative” one of homeopathy. His family have been bonesetters for generations, though his nephew has succumbed to modernity by qualifying as a doctor. While this nephew is a dedicated professional, the local qualified doctor is a drunken incompetent, who strongly resents that so many locals prefer to visit the “quack” Walls rather than him. It’s an interesting comparison of the skilled but unqualified practitioner and the feckless professional, with all the sympathy going to the former.
The plotting and characterisation are both done well again, as in the first book, but it’s definitely the setting and atmosphere of both that appeals to me, and in this one, I felt I got to know Inspector Littlejohn a little more fully. Well written, above-average police procedurals, and I’ll happily look out for more from Bellairs.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
For some reason, the British Library has given us a double helping in this volume, with two full-size novels both starring Inspector Littlejohn.
The Dead Shall Be Raised 4 stars
This is set during WW2 and tells the story of a murder that happened twenty years earlier, during WW1. Inspector Littlejohn has travelled to Yorkshire to spend Christmas with his wife, who is living there to get away from the bombing of London. But no sooner has he arrived than a corpse is dug up, and is soon identified as Enoch Sykes, a young man who disappeared twenty years ago at the same time as his one-time friend Jerry Trickett was found shot dead. The assumption was that Enoch had killed Jerry in a fight over a girl and then fled. But now it appears the case is more complicated and Inspector Littlejohn is happy to work alongside the local police to investigate. Soon it becomes clear that more than one of the locals had reason to resent Enoch and Littlejohn will have to use all his skills to find the murderer.
The book starts off with Littlejohn travelling to Yorkshire by train, immediately giving a great feeling for the restrictions and difficulties of getting around during the war. Once in the village of Hatterworth, the descriptive writing is equally good and we are taken into village life straight away as the Littlejohns attend the parish carol service. When the investigation gets underway we are introduced to the other characters, and Bellairs makes each of them believable, from the old innkeeper who saw the two victims on the night of the crime, to the retired policeman who carried out the original investigation, to old Mrs Sykes, Enoch’s mother, and at the other end of the social scale, Mrs Myles, once their employer. It is deep midwinter, and Bellairs makes us feel the snow and bitter cold as the detectives trudge around talking to witnesses and suspects.
I did enjoy this, but somehow it didn’t completely catch fire for me. It’s very well written and although the pool of suspects is small, the solution is more complex than it first appears that it might be. I think it was maybe that Littlejohn, though likeable enough and certainly good at his job, is a bit bland. I didn’t get much of a feel for what he was thinking or feeling, or of what kind of man he was. That felt a bit strange since all the secondary characters were so well drawn, so it may be that Bellairs was assuming his readers would already know all about Littlejohn from previous books – this, I believe, was the 4th in the series. A 4-star read, then, but it certainly left me keen enough to want to read the other book...
The Murder of a Quack 4 stars
Since I’m never keen about reading books in the same series immediately after each other, I left a gap of a few months before reading this second one, and found I fell back into the author’s world very happily and was pleased to meet up with Inspector Littlejohn again, so clearly he’d left a better long-term impression than I initially thought he would.
Nathaniel Wall, an elderly, well-regarded bonesetter, is found murdered in his surgery. He has been strangled, then hanged in an attempt to make it look like suicide. The local police promptly call in Inspector Littlejohn of the Yard. This gets off to a great start again, as Bellairs describes the local policeman enjoying a rare moment of peace and then being called out to investigate when Wall’s housekeeper returns from an overnight visit to her sister to find the surgery door locked. Bellairs is really good at creating an atmosphere from the beginning, which immediately leaves the reader wanting to know what happened.
The idea of the bonesetter intrigued me too – something I haven’t come across before. This is again set during WW2 (though the war has no relevance to the plot), before the creation of the National Health Service and before medicine became so strictly regulated. Today we’d think of Wall as an osteopath primarily, though he also dips into other fields of medicine including the more “alternative” one of homeopathy. His family have been bonesetters for generations, though his nephew has succumbed to modernity by qualifying as a doctor. While this nephew is a dedicated professional, the local qualified doctor is a drunken incompetent, who strongly resents that so many locals prefer to visit the “quack” Walls rather than him. It’s an interesting comparison of the skilled but unqualified practitioner and the feckless professional, with all the sympathy going to the former.
The plotting and characterisation are both done well again, as in the first book, but it’s definitely the setting and atmosphere of both that appeals to me, and in this one, I felt I got to know Inspector Littlejohn a little more fully. Well written, above-average police procedurals, and I’ll happily look out for more from Bellairs.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
fernandie's review
4.0
Note: I accessed digital review copies of this book through NetGalley and Edelweiss.
vsbedford's review against another edition
4.0
A delightful two-fer from Mr. Bellairs and Inspector Littlejohn in which, in my opinion, The Murder of a Quack is the far stronger piece - it's lively, with a sly sense of humor, and a mystery that, while a bit too convenient here and there, is genuinely surprising and certainly well-plotted. The Dead Shall be Raised, by contrast, tends to malinger around and get muddy in both the crime and its resolution. It's definitely a recommend, however, as even a just okay Bellairs mystery is a cut above the average.
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
bev_reads_mysteries's review
4.0
The Dead Shall Be Raised (finished 1/13/19)
In The Dead Shall Be Raised (1942) by George Bellairs, Inspector Thomas Littlejohn and his wife are set to spend a quiet Christmas holiday in the small town of Hatterworth. The story begins cozily enough--with a warm welcome from the local police superintendent and a visit from the village carolers. But the Christmas night performance of Handel's Messiah (with Superintendent Haworth in a starring role) is interrupted by the announcement that members of the Home Guard have dug up a skeleton while practicing maneuvers and fortifications on the moor.
Materials found with the skeleton soon allow it to be identified as Enoch Sykes, a man thought to have murdered a former friend and run off after a falling out over a young woman over 20 years ago. Apparently someone else had it in for both Jeremy Trickett and Sykes and thought burying Sykes's body would allow their crime to go undetected...they've been right (and lucky) up till now. Haworth asks the Scotland Yard man if he'd like to take a busman's holiday and lend a hand in digging up the past. It's going to be a difficult job--half of the participants are dead, hrough old age, illness, or having perished in the current war. It isn't long before Littlejohn and Haworth discover that there were those who knew more than they told at the time and they had their reasons for holding their tongues. One of those in the know think it better to try their hand at blackmail than to take their knowledge to the police...and, of course, they meet the end destined for many blackmailers in detective fiction.
The Yard man and the local policemen work hard to track down clues on a very cold case. And they come down to being a hairsbreadth away from laying their villain by his/her heels. It will take the wiles of the 80-year-old retired Inspector Entwhistle to give them the evidence that allows the final confrontation.
This is delightful Golden Age mystery that I am so very glad the British Library Crime Classics decided to reissue. Bellairs writes about the English countryside during wartime with a sure hand yet gives the reader a pleasant, homey description of the village. Inspector Entwhistle is (to borrow a GAD phrase) a caution and I only wish that he had been allowed to participate more fully in the investigation. The characters are introduced with warmth and descriptions that make them seem like remembrances of real people rather than just characters in a novel.
Sometimes these Golden Age writers who produced mysteries during the war years appear to have been trying to forget that there even was a war going on. Perhaps they wanted to provide their readers an escape from the horrors. In fact, some of the novels could have been written just about any time, given how little current events make their way into the story. Bellairs brings references to the war into his narrative so easily that it places the book firmly in that era without making the story itself seem dated. Mrs. Littlejohn and Mrs. Haworth sit at home and knit scarves and other warm necessities for the soldiers. Ration books and identity cards are a necessary addition to life on the war-era home front. He also allows us to look back at a time when tramps were a common sight and farm laborers, game keepers and poachers were part of the country landscape.
The one draw-back as a mystery is the fact that there are fewer suspects than might be desirable to keep the reader mystified. There is, however, a portion of the solution that allows for a bit of a surprise which almost makes up for the lack of suspects and red herrings. Overall, a good entry in the Littlejohn chronicles and I definitely look forward to moving on to Murder of a Quack--the second novel in the British Library Crime Classics reprint edition. ★★★ and 3/4.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
The Murder of a Quack [finished 1/14/19]
The Murder of a Quack (1943) by George Bellairs once again finds Scotland Yard's Inspector Littlejohn investigating murder in a small English village. This time Nathaniel Wall, a beloved local "quack" bonesetter is found hanging from one of the contraptions he uses in his cures. At first it looks like the only people who had any dislike at all for the man were certified doctors. Wall comes from a family of bonesetters (those who can manipulate bones and joints, but who have no formal training) and the people of Stalden have come to rely on his skill. In fact, they prefer him over the new doctor who has bought the practice of a doctor who long had respect for the bonesetter. Circumstances (the doctor's alcoholic ways and a certain incident of a missed broken collarbone) had caused the villagers to seek out Wall's help even more. But would a doctor really resort to murder to get rid of the competition?
Littlejohn soon discovers that there are others with a possible motive--from the young woman who had considered him an uncle...until "uncle" decided to poke his nose into her romantic affairs to the young man she wishes to marry (and who has a decided row with the doctor) to the mysterious man who once sought the doctor's help with a deformity. When newspaper clippings are found which feature a bank robbery and a well-known forgery, Littlejohn begins to wonder what the connections are. Once he figures that out, he'll be well on his way to solving the mystery. But not before another body is found at the bottom of a well....
This is another pleasant mystery in the Littlejohn line-up. The Inspector is a good man who investigates at a steady pace and with little "flair" or excitement, but provides a nice comfortable story to follow. As with the previous novel, the major complaint is that there are too few suspects. There isn't much doubt after about half-way in who the main culprit is, but Bellairs provides a little bonus that makes it well worthwhile. These stories are perfect for when you don't want a complicated mystery--just a little puzzle and nice visit to Britain of the 1940s. There is also a thread of wry humor that runs throughout and makes things interesting. ★★★ and 1/2.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
In The Dead Shall Be Raised (1942) by George Bellairs, Inspector Thomas Littlejohn and his wife are set to spend a quiet Christmas holiday in the small town of Hatterworth. The story begins cozily enough--with a warm welcome from the local police superintendent and a visit from the village carolers. But the Christmas night performance of Handel's Messiah (with Superintendent Haworth in a starring role) is interrupted by the announcement that members of the Home Guard have dug up a skeleton while practicing maneuvers and fortifications on the moor.
Materials found with the skeleton soon allow it to be identified as Enoch Sykes, a man thought to have murdered a former friend and run off after a falling out over a young woman over 20 years ago. Apparently someone else had it in for both Jeremy Trickett and Sykes and thought burying Sykes's body would allow their crime to go undetected...they've been right (and lucky) up till now. Haworth asks the Scotland Yard man if he'd like to take a busman's holiday and lend a hand in digging up the past. It's going to be a difficult job--half of the participants are dead, hrough old age, illness, or having perished in the current war. It isn't long before Littlejohn and Haworth discover that there were those who knew more than they told at the time and they had their reasons for holding their tongues. One of those in the know think it better to try their hand at blackmail than to take their knowledge to the police...and, of course, they meet the end destined for many blackmailers in detective fiction.
The Yard man and the local policemen work hard to track down clues on a very cold case. And they come down to being a hairsbreadth away from laying their villain by his/her heels. It will take the wiles of the 80-year-old retired Inspector Entwhistle to give them the evidence that allows the final confrontation.
This is delightful Golden Age mystery that I am so very glad the British Library Crime Classics decided to reissue. Bellairs writes about the English countryside during wartime with a sure hand yet gives the reader a pleasant, homey description of the village. Inspector Entwhistle is (to borrow a GAD phrase) a caution and I only wish that he had been allowed to participate more fully in the investigation. The characters are introduced with warmth and descriptions that make them seem like remembrances of real people rather than just characters in a novel.
Sometimes these Golden Age writers who produced mysteries during the war years appear to have been trying to forget that there even was a war going on. Perhaps they wanted to provide their readers an escape from the horrors. In fact, some of the novels could have been written just about any time, given how little current events make their way into the story. Bellairs brings references to the war into his narrative so easily that it places the book firmly in that era without making the story itself seem dated. Mrs. Littlejohn and Mrs. Haworth sit at home and knit scarves and other warm necessities for the soldiers. Ration books and identity cards are a necessary addition to life on the war-era home front. He also allows us to look back at a time when tramps were a common sight and farm laborers, game keepers and poachers were part of the country landscape.
The one draw-back as a mystery is the fact that there are fewer suspects than might be desirable to keep the reader mystified. There is, however, a portion of the solution that allows for a bit of a surprise which almost makes up for the lack of suspects and red herrings. Overall, a good entry in the Littlejohn chronicles and I definitely look forward to moving on to Murder of a Quack--the second novel in the British Library Crime Classics reprint edition. ★★★ and 3/4.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
The Murder of a Quack [finished 1/14/19]
The Murder of a Quack (1943) by George Bellairs once again finds Scotland Yard's Inspector Littlejohn investigating murder in a small English village. This time Nathaniel Wall, a beloved local "quack" bonesetter is found hanging from one of the contraptions he uses in his cures. At first it looks like the only people who had any dislike at all for the man were certified doctors. Wall comes from a family of bonesetters (those who can manipulate bones and joints, but who have no formal training) and the people of Stalden have come to rely on his skill. In fact, they prefer him over the new doctor who has bought the practice of a doctor who long had respect for the bonesetter. Circumstances (the doctor's alcoholic ways and a certain incident of a missed broken collarbone) had caused the villagers to seek out Wall's help even more. But would a doctor really resort to murder to get rid of the competition?
Littlejohn soon discovers that there are others with a possible motive--from the young woman who had considered him an uncle...until "uncle" decided to poke his nose into her romantic affairs to the young man she wishes to marry (and who has a decided row with the doctor) to the mysterious man who once sought the doctor's help with a deformity. When newspaper clippings are found which feature a bank robbery and a well-known forgery, Littlejohn begins to wonder what the connections are. Once he figures that out, he'll be well on his way to solving the mystery. But not before another body is found at the bottom of a well....
This is another pleasant mystery in the Littlejohn line-up. The Inspector is a good man who investigates at a steady pace and with little "flair" or excitement, but provides a nice comfortable story to follow. As with the previous novel, the major complaint is that there are too few suspects. There isn't much doubt after about half-way in who the main culprit is, but Bellairs provides a little bonus that makes it well worthwhile. These stories are perfect for when you don't want a complicated mystery--just a little puzzle and nice visit to Britain of the 1940s. There is also a thread of wry humor that runs throughout and makes things interesting. ★★★ and 1/2.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
dan78's review against another edition
4.0
The Dead Shall Be Raised - I've only read this story so far (I'll take a break and return for the next one) but it was excellent!
A witty, entertaining read from start to finish. I really enjoyed the characters and the plot was perfect.
A true Golden Age Crime story and I look forward to reading The Murder of a Quack!
A witty, entertaining read from start to finish. I really enjoyed the characters and the plot was perfect.
A true Golden Age Crime story and I look forward to reading The Murder of a Quack!
harrietnbrown's review against another edition
In 2018 I will no longer spend my time reading misogynistic books. Mrs. Pickersgill is described as obviously "the one who wore the trousers," her hair "gathered in a tremendous grey bun and held rigidly in position by what looked like a fishnet." On her face is "a look of perpetual, meddling curiosity." And so on and on and on. Forget it.
miggsisalot's review against another edition
4.0
Having been pleasantly wowed by the first Detective Inspector Littlejohn mystery I’ve ever read, Death of a Busybody, I went into this double feature volume with mild expectations and wasn’t disappointed. In the first tale, The Dead Shall Be Raised, Littlejohn and his wife Letty are spending their Christmas holiday with friends in the town of Hatterworth, after their Hampstead flat is damaged in an air raid. During a festive Christmas evening, the remains of a man who had gone missing in 1917 are uncovered, and Littlejohn is persuaded by the local superintendent to aid in what soon becomes a case of double murder dating back to the years of the first World War. The second tale, The Murder of a Quack, Littlejohn is called to the village of Stalden to investigate the death of Nathaniel Wall, a homeopathic practitioner, or ‘bonesetter’. Mr. Wall’s body is discovered hung up inside of his own surgery-room by his housekeeper and the local constabulary. Renowned for his skills and well-liked by the villagers, Mr. Wall didn’t seem like a man with many enemies, so who could have murdered him in such a brutal fashion, and why?
While both stories are typical procedural mysteries, the elements that made Death of a Busybody so entertaining and enjoyable are very present. The Dead Shall Be Raised, the denser of the two, is chock-full of colorful characters and memorable scenes, even a few tense moments where you think you’ve sussed out the perpetrator but it isn’t what you expected. The Murder of a Quack is more of a straightforward procedural, not as twisty-turny and perhaps a bit grimmer. I did let out a happy yell with the return of Littlejohn’s trusty associate, Detective Sergeant Cromwell.
I’m now well and truly hooked on the Littlejohn Mysteries, and I do hope that The Publishing Powers that Be release more of George Bellairs’s (real name Harold Blundell) work, because I will eat it right up.
This review was originally posted at: http://armchairamusements.com/the-roundup-books-i-read-in-august/
While both stories are typical procedural mysteries, the elements that made Death of a Busybody so entertaining and enjoyable are very present. The Dead Shall Be Raised, the denser of the two, is chock-full of colorful characters and memorable scenes, even a few tense moments where you think you’ve sussed out the perpetrator but it isn’t what you expected. The Murder of a Quack is more of a straightforward procedural, not as twisty-turny and perhaps a bit grimmer. I did let out a happy yell with the return of Littlejohn’s trusty associate, Detective Sergeant Cromwell.
I’m now well and truly hooked on the Littlejohn Mysteries, and I do hope that The Publishing Powers that Be release more of George Bellairs’s (real name Harold Blundell) work, because I will eat it right up.
This review was originally posted at: http://armchairamusements.com/the-roundup-books-i-read-in-august/
briarfairchild's review against another edition
2.0
I'd have enjoyed these a lot more if it hadn't been for Bellairs' bizarre and tedious attitude towards women. He seems to feel that there is a very narrow definition of what makes a Good Woman, and the vast majority of his women characters do not fit it. Although, equally bizarrely, a woman who thinks it's ok to beat her maid across the face with a stick actually does fit it. I don't think he has the best judgement on this subject!
Plotwise these stories are fairly enjoyable though the conclusions are pretty obvious, even to me, who is hopeless at whodunnits. To be honest, though, I didn't care enough about any of the characters to really be bothered by who did it at all. All in all, these stories are fine but I shan't bother with any more of this author's works.
Plotwise these stories are fairly enjoyable though the conclusions are pretty obvious, even to me, who is hopeless at whodunnits. To be honest, though, I didn't care enough about any of the characters to really be bothered by who did it at all. All in all, these stories are fine but I shan't bother with any more of this author's works.