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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
I had high hopes when I saw this book sitting on the shelf at my local library. Cantankerous archivist Agatha Dorn discovers a lost manuscript by famous author of detective fiction Gladden Green, and lets her newfound fame get to her head, only to be brought down to earth rudely when the manuscript turns out to be a hoax. She then turns detective when she suspects that her former partner, Murgatroyd, did not commit suicide but was killed, when Agatha finds a scrap of the manuscript by Murgatroyd's bed.
Alas, Agatha was a most unlikeable character with no redeeming qualities whatsoever (unlike, say, Ove in A Man Named One, Agatha Raisin or Eudora Honeysett in The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett). She's self-centred and self-absorbed, smug and not very bright, truth be told. But unappealing protagonist aside, this just wasn't a very well-written book. The plot was a little incredible with too many threads that were not very well woven together and the prose didn't help. This is the first time I've had to skim a murder mystery just to make it to the end.
Alas, Agatha was a most unlikeable character with no redeeming qualities whatsoever (unlike, say, Ove in A Man Named One, Agatha Raisin or Eudora Honeysett in The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett). She's self-centred and self-absorbed, smug and not very bright, truth be told. But unappealing protagonist aside, this just wasn't a very well-written book. The plot was a little incredible with too many threads that were not very well woven together and the prose didn't help. This is the first time I've had to skim a murder mystery just to make it to the end.
Literary skulduggery…
Agatha Dorn is an archivist at the Neele Archive, a library of rare manuscripts and first editions, situated in central London. Agatha specialises in the work of Gladden Green, the greatest of the Golden Age mystery novelists, whose books starred a foreign detective, Père Flambeau, and have been the subject of a hugely successful series of TV adaptations. Once upon a time, Gladden Green mysteriously vanished for a couple of weeks, turning up in the Pale Horse inn in Harrogate. Critics still argue over why she disappeared – mental breakdown, or wicked revenge on her unfaithful husband, Archie? But now Agatha has discovered a manuscript in a box of papers left to the archive, which seems to be a lost novel Green dashed off during her hiatus. ‘The Dog’s Ball’ will be a literary sensation, but the launch will become swamped in mystery, corruption, skulduggery and death...
How many Christie references did you count in that mini-blurb? The whole book is full of them, very cleverly used and often hilarious. I chuckled my way through this, and was torn between rushing through it because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened and reading it slowly to savour the fun and play spot-the-reference. It is in no way a Christie pastiche, thankfully. It is entirely modern in style and the plot, while it has aspects of impossible crimes and whodunits, is based firmly in the contemporary world. At first, the Christie references were a bit jarring – so blatant and not always entirely respectful of either Christie or her legacy, but rightly or wrongly I decided that anyone who knew her work so well must love her!
Agatha is self-centred, opinionated and cantankerous, drunk much of the time and hungover most of the rest. I couldn’t stand her for the first twenty pages or so, and by the end I adored her! She’s also intelligent, witty, sarcastic and determined, and even quite brave sometimes (though that may be because of the gin). To cap it off, she’s an extreme grammar pedant, who will always say for whom rather than who for, and who asterisks out all the swear words. I felt I’d found a soul mate!
The actual plot gets progressively more convoluted as it goes along. It all centres round whether the manuscript is genuine or fake, but there’s much more to it than that. Unscrupulous business people, a possible buy-out of the Neele, ambitious co-workers, ex-girlfriends, Agatha’s childhood nightmares about the Crooked Man seeming to come real, people going missing and other people dying – it’s complicated! It does all work out in the end, but I must admit I had to read the last couple of chapters twice to get a firm grasp on who dun what to whom and why! But there’s a lovely mix of humour and growing tension, and I had fun guessing (wrongly) who would turn out to be the baddie(s).
The book works fine on its own merits – Agatha is a wonderful creation, the humour gives it the tone of a cosy despite a few rather tragic aspects, and the plot held my interest even as I became ever more confused. But it’s even more fun if you happen to be a Christie fan! I found myself laughing at all kinds of odd moments of recognition – like Agatha’s old friend (partner? Even Agatha is unsure about that) being called Murgatroyd. Or like her brutal (but funny) depiction of Gladden Green’s literary executors and their money-grasping editorial control over every aspect of her posthumous career – not unlike my own opinion of the Christie estate and how they milk her legacy. Despite the slyness of some of the humour, it reads like an affectionate tribute to the acknowledged Queen of Crime, and I loved every moment of it. I do hope Agatha finds herself immersed in more trouble some time…
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Agatha Dorn is an archivist at the Neele Archive, a library of rare manuscripts and first editions, situated in central London. Agatha specialises in the work of Gladden Green, the greatest of the Golden Age mystery novelists, whose books starred a foreign detective, Père Flambeau, and have been the subject of a hugely successful series of TV adaptations. Once upon a time, Gladden Green mysteriously vanished for a couple of weeks, turning up in the Pale Horse inn in Harrogate. Critics still argue over why she disappeared – mental breakdown, or wicked revenge on her unfaithful husband, Archie? But now Agatha has discovered a manuscript in a box of papers left to the archive, which seems to be a lost novel Green dashed off during her hiatus. ‘The Dog’s Ball’ will be a literary sensation, but the launch will become swamped in mystery, corruption, skulduggery and death...
How many Christie references did you count in that mini-blurb? The whole book is full of them, very cleverly used and often hilarious. I chuckled my way through this, and was torn between rushing through it because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened and reading it slowly to savour the fun and play spot-the-reference. It is in no way a Christie pastiche, thankfully. It is entirely modern in style and the plot, while it has aspects of impossible crimes and whodunits, is based firmly in the contemporary world. At first, the Christie references were a bit jarring – so blatant and not always entirely respectful of either Christie or her legacy, but rightly or wrongly I decided that anyone who knew her work so well must love her!
And so I became a Gladden Green enthusiast and then, once I arrived at the Neele, a Gladden Green expert – though on the sly, since I do not really like the idea of anyone knowing that anything matters to me very much. I especially did not want them knowing about my love of what they might wrongly consider the subliterary corpus of a conceited old sow.
For I should say, even now, people mostly do not take Gladden Green seriously. But then, people are idiots.
Agatha is self-centred, opinionated and cantankerous, drunk much of the time and hungover most of the rest. I couldn’t stand her for the first twenty pages or so, and by the end I adored her! She’s also intelligent, witty, sarcastic and determined, and even quite brave sometimes (though that may be because of the gin). To cap it off, she’s an extreme grammar pedant, who will always say for whom rather than who for, and who asterisks out all the swear words. I felt I’d found a soul mate!
Crime bookshops smell weird, because of all that cheap paper in one place. The crime-fiction subculture is a world in which, my career in Green notwithstanding, I have never had much interest. There is something vaguely pornographic about it. When one talks to hard-core crime people, one invariably has the impression that they would much rather be listening to a description of the mutilated body of a young girl than whatever one is saying.
The actual plot gets progressively more convoluted as it goes along. It all centres round whether the manuscript is genuine or fake, but there’s much more to it than that. Unscrupulous business people, a possible buy-out of the Neele, ambitious co-workers, ex-girlfriends, Agatha’s childhood nightmares about the Crooked Man seeming to come real, people going missing and other people dying – it’s complicated! It does all work out in the end, but I must admit I had to read the last couple of chapters twice to get a firm grasp on who dun what to whom and why! But there’s a lovely mix of humour and growing tension, and I had fun guessing (wrongly) who would turn out to be the baddie(s).
The book works fine on its own merits – Agatha is a wonderful creation, the humour gives it the tone of a cosy despite a few rather tragic aspects, and the plot held my interest even as I became ever more confused. But it’s even more fun if you happen to be a Christie fan! I found myself laughing at all kinds of odd moments of recognition – like Agatha’s old friend (partner? Even Agatha is unsure about that) being called Murgatroyd. Or like her brutal (but funny) depiction of Gladden Green’s literary executors and their money-grasping editorial control over every aspect of her posthumous career – not unlike my own opinion of the Christie estate and how they milk her legacy. Despite the slyness of some of the humour, it reads like an affectionate tribute to the acknowledged Queen of Crime, and I loved every moment of it. I do hope Agatha finds herself immersed in more trouble some time…
Was I a crazy woman, haphazardly but unmistakably drifting down and out, sick, unemployed, drunk, obsessed with solving a murder that had never occurred? Or was I a maverick, pursuing truth and justice when no one believed in me, even at the cost of my own well being? I should have bought myself a cat way back, when Nancy got the curator's job at the Neele, and saved myself all this anguish. But then I would have had (ugh!) hairs and poo and cat puke all over my flat at the Gatehouse – I understand there are things called hairballs that cats produce. I didn't even want to think about those. No, a cat was not a price I would have been willing to pay, even in retrospect.
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mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Loved the main character and was invested in her story.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Not my kind of book. Pompous and wordy.
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
With a nod to old style pulp fiction, Spencer gives us a mystery that may or may not involve the maniacally mythic Crooked Man. Agatha is an unlikely, and unlikable, amateur detective who is often distracted by gin and her own self-centered nature. As much as I would hate to have Agatha as a co-worker, there is no other character who could have made this story work so well. Snuggle us under a blanket, maybe with some gin, and enjoy this cozy mystery.
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicide
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This was one of those books where you love and hate the main character in equal measure, which truly is an incredible feat of writing on the author's behalf. There were many moments where I truly hated Agatha for her arrogance, callousness, obliviousness, etc. but I still couldn't help but root for her (the fact that she's a queer MC certainly helped!) The "mystery" was interesting and just the right level of confusing for you to feel just as lost as Agatha was while she searched for the answers which kept me hooked from the very first sentence. The only downside to this book was the identity of the "Crooked Man", a person which I already suspected from the very first chapter due to a particular memory of Agatha's. Although that was definitely disheartening, I still enjoyed the rest of the story as despite knowing who the killer was, I had no idea what their motives behind their actions were, and it was interesting to find out - as well as to suddenly realise how all of the supposedly individual subplots were interconnected!
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It is a very fun read!