robinwalter's reviews
1764 reviews

Exit Sir John by Brian Flynn

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mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.0

One of Deborah Crombie's Kincaid and James series of detective novels is built around the persistence and growth of anti-Semitism in the UK during and immediately after World War II. I was reminded of that book by this one. Published in 1947, right from the start of the book it seemed to be so overtly anti-Semitic that I finished it not as a whodunnit but simply to find out if the Jew done it. The creepy fixation on Jewishness comes across as Flynn's fixation, not his characters'.  An excellent example being this passage: 

Ebenezer Isaacs immediately suggested a tall and much more robust Benjamin Disraeli, one-time Earl of Beaconsfield. He was spare, it is true, but he looked strong and healthy. He was a Jew—there was no doubt about that. His eyes and his nose gave the greatest evidences of that. The eyes were dark-set and restless, and the nose prominent and cast in the mould of Judah.

That passage was also the second time in the book a character had described the UK's  only Jewish-born Prime Minister not by that more prominent and famous role, but as the "one-time" and (even more oddly) "some-time"  Earl of Beaconsfield. The references were odd and left me with a lingering suspicion that Flynn was not comfortable that one of the UK's most famous C19 statesmen was of Jewish descent, and dismissive of his 'ennoblement'. 

As it turned out the evil Jew was a red herring, but by the time that became clear Flynn had angered me even more by breaching what I consider to be a fundamental principle of fair play detective stories. If the detective discovers a clue they consider to be crucial, then the reader of the story should be able to find the same clue and work out its significance. In this story, a critical piece of the puzzle relates to one verse from the Bible, Psalm 135:20. Bathurst reads this verse, but the rendering he uses, which is central to his "Eureka!" moment in unlocking the case, does not exist anywhere. He makes much of the fact that a certain word occurs twice in that verse, when in fact it only occurs once.  The fact that the one word in question is closely connected to the "evil Jew" red herring again made me uncomfortable too.


That's lazy research, the ultimate crime for any mystery writer to commit, and really annoying. As someone who's read the entire Bible more often than I could count,  it was also a massive distraction, as I chased down multiple English translations , translations in several other languages and checked a Hebrew interlinear version and the Septuagint  - all in an ultimately vain hunt for this mythical rendition on which Bathurst built much of his case. I did this not from any concern for religious or doctrinal purity, but simply because I was seriously hacked off that Flynn had made a completely non-existent rendition the key which by Bathurst's own statement unlocked the door to the mystery and let all the pieces fall in place. He might just as well have said, "it's here in  the Third Revelation to Zaphod chapter 74, verse 16: "for the Snark was a Boojum, you see!" 

This is the 17th Brian Flynn Bathurst novel I have read, and most I have quite enjoyed., some a great deal.  This one I am scoring at 2/5 and that's being generous simply because Bathurst's exposition at the end shows that the story could have been interesting were it not for what definitely felt like Flynn's own unhealthy xenophobic fixation on people who "look Jewish" and his decision to cheat me on the one occasion when I thought I could actually play the game on a level playing field. 
The Other Side of the Moon: The Life of David Niven by Sheridan Morley

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informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time at my maternal grandparents' home. They strongly nurtured my love of reading. It was in a small room in their house that I first read The Lord of the Rings as a seven year old. When I wasn't in the spare room falling in love with philology and etymology, I was often in the dining room, watching my grandad reading at the kitchen table. For some reason, whenever I subsequently pictured my grandad sitting at the table reading, the book I saw was "The Moon is a Balloon" by David Niven. So last year I finally got around to reading it myself, and it was entertaining. The stories were fun and he came across as a very interesting man. Finding out after reading it that most of the stories had often only a tangential relationship to something that might in dim light be mistaken for the truth left me feeling a little disappointed. 

Which is why I decided to read Sheridan Morley's biography of Niven called "The Other Side of the Moon." I am glad I did, because the overriding impression the book left me with is that Niven's collection of stories was indeed autobiographical — not in spite of being little more than a collection of amusingly enhanced anecdotes but because of it.  Morley's book makes it plain that that is who Niven was. The account of Noël Coward and a friend scoring Niven's storytelling after an evening out really drove that home. 

Morley's work was very detailed, and something that stood out from it was how often so many different people said almost exactly the same thing about Niven. Comments made decades apart tended to sum up Niven in the same way, as these examples show. 

Niven was, in Katharine Hepburn’s intelligent distinction, ‘not so much an actor acting as a personality functioning on camera’

There was an odd sort of insecurity always hanging over him, and he often seemed frightened of wasting his charm on the wrong people – as though it was all he had, and it might one day run out.’

Behind all that bonhomie and the endless anecdotes and good cheer, there seemed to be a sort of nervousness

He wasn’t really an actor: he was a man who presented himself to the world over and over again.’

Morley's book really shone when it touched on the not fun parts of Niven's life, which were numerous and significant, and almost without exception not mentioned at all in his own work. The impact of losing his beloved first wife through a tragic accident, the strains of a career that never completely took off for a combination of reasons, and the description of his final years suffering from motor neuron disease really rounded out the picture of David Niven. Morley writes sympathetically and with compassion. 

The only issue I have with the book is its length. It is very clear that the overwhelming bulk of Niven's film career was largely forgettable. Indeed that's almost the point of much of this biography. That being the case, it seems to me the book could have been 50-100 pages shorter had it contained fewer lengthy passages detailing many of those forgettable works. While most of those mediocre to bad films outlined in this biography did contribute something to the picture of Niven the person, there were many that did not, and their absence would not have harmed this book at all.  The thrust of almost of all them could be summed up in one comment from an actor about a film they appeared in together:

The picture didn’t really work, but we had a lot of fun.’

Of course, the one thing that it seems Niven liked to do more than anything else was make people laugh, and it's appropriate that there are many passages in this book which do exactly that. One that literally had me laughing out loud also made me think of the title of Niven's follow-up to "The Moon is a Balloon" , "Bring on the Empty Horses" – although in this case it seems the problem was that the horses were anything but empty.  In case anyone who reads this decides to read the book (and you should), here's the setup for that very funny anecdote:

My wrangler said, rather ominously, “Don’t get your mount too close to the mares,”

Overall I enjoyed this book for what it taught me about a man who I as a child assumed must've been really famous because of the amount of time my grandfather spent reading his books.  Indeed Morley makes clear just how remarkable the success of Niven's raconteur reminiscences really was.

It was also interesting to see something of an insider's perspective on other famous screen names of the era. Such as Peter Sellers, the star of the Pink Panther series of films who this book makes clear  was never supposed to be the star of the first Pink Panther movie. The description of that "theft" and its subsequent long lasting effect on Niven is a great example of why this was a very worthwhile read. Thanks again, Dean Street Press! 
Bloody Instructions by Sara Woods

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lighthearted mysterious relaxing
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

 Before Dean Street Press announced that they would be publishing the first five of her Antony Maitland series in December 2024, I had never even heard of Sara Woods. Now I can't wait to read more. This was a well constructed mystery, and above all,  it was fun to read. 
 
A regular "added value" feature of many Dean Street Press mystery novels are  Introductions by the crime historian Curtis Evans. The biographical background of the authors and the historical context of the novels he provides is very helpful. In his introduction to this book he discusses at some length the "Silver Age" mystery writers, the generation of leading crime writers who came up after Christie, Allingham, Marsh, Sayers etc. Two prominent names from that era are PD James and Ruth Rendell. In his introduction Evans cites an example of someone who praised  Woods  for not writing the sort of bleakly downbeat psychological mysteries those authors specialised in.  Rendell and James are not to my taste, so I was encouraged to learn that Woods was not like them. Having finished this book it turns out she was very much not like them. 
 
On the evidence of this first book in the series, the Antony Maitland mysteries are exactly my kind of mysteries. A prominent feature of the story and one that really endeared it to me is the happy and settled domestic life of the protagonist. Series detectives from James and Rendell on have tended to be dour, dyspeptic,  depressed and depressing, often with a dash of dysfunctional and divorced thrown in for added alliteration. There is none of that here. The sense of genuine affection between Antony Maitland and his wife Jenny, was not only a joy to read in itself but reminded me of one of my favourite married couples from crime fiction, Albert and Amanda Campion. 
 
Woods did not hold back from including frequent references to the mutual affection between Anthony and Jenny, like this delightfully sentimental passage: 
 
He looked at her more searchingly for a moment, trying to see her as a stranger might, her slim figure silhouetted against the red velvet hangings of the box, and her brown curls shining. Her eyes were probably her best feature: grey eyes, with a quality of steadfastness. For the rest . . . but what a soulless thing was a mere catalogue: she was Jenny, he reflected with a sudden surge of affection, and the most beautiful thing in the world. 
 
and she did not hold back from sprinkling the book with a lot of gentle humour. This example of Antony meeting a potential witness made me chuckle: 
 
“I remember. You came with your father. You were very cheerful.” 
Antony, feeling rather as though he had been accused, and convicted, of several of the more lurid Old Testament sins, only just stopped himself in time from apologizing for what had evidently been regarded as a lapse of taste 
 
Some of her humorous observations  may have been inspired by her work in a legal office, as with this passage, describing a barrister evaluating potential jurors 
 
there was a stout, motherly body, who obviously had at least ten children, on whom he felt he could rely for sympathetic attention. (The lady in question was single, a professor at London University, and held men in general, and lawyers in particular, in aversion, but that is beside the point.) 
 
 
It wasn't simply that the book was fun to read that made it enjoyable. Woods wrote well. An example of this that became obvious very early was her ability to create characters that I really did not like. Mystery novels are not generally famous for their characterisation, and it's certainly not the central foundation of her story,  but she manages to create characters that come across as real enough for me to actively dislike them. This was especially true of  one person described as a friend of Anthony who seemed to me anything but. I was also impressed that for a first novel the recurring characters were introduced with a minimum of exposition. We found out something about all of them, but it's clear that we will find out more about the key characters as the series goes. The absence of info dumps was another big plus.
 
An interesting feature of this first book in the series was the way that Anthony himself was put in jeopardy. Not physical danger, but his career and reputation was seriously threatened. I'm scoring this book  4.75/5  because I found the aftermath of the resolution a bit unsatisfying.  The resolution was probably more realistic than the neat and tidy wrap I’d have preferred, but it still left me some distance from gruntled. 
 
This was  my second book for Dean Street December 2024, and the second series debut from a new to me author. I loved both, and since they wrote more than 80 books between them, I have plenty of Dean Street delights to come. 
 
Information Received by E.R. Punshon

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mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Information Received is the first in E. R. Punshon's  Bobby Owen mystery series. The Dean Street Press editions I have bought (of the first four books in the series so far) all make much of the ringing endorsement of Punshon's work by Dorothy Sayers. It is a testament to my regard for Dean Street Press and trust in their judgment that I bought these books despite their being burdened with praise from an author I actively dislike. Happily, this first book in the series rose above that potentially crippling handicap and proved to be exceptional.  It also proved again the exceptional value Dean Street Press adds to their reissues with the wonderfully informative introductions, this one by a DSP stalwart, crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
 
Sayers praised the books for the quality of their writing. The truth of this assessment is obvious throughout  Information Received . I highlighted many passages in my copy where the writing just sang to me. Here are a few of my favourites: 

 That’s the first maxim in my forthcoming book, The Complete Detective and How to Be It, which will be one of the world’s lost masterpieces because I’ll never write it.

 
Glancing at a pile of cigarette ash and deducing therefrom the age, income, and political opinions of the smoker, was a feat entirely beyond his powers. 
(bonus points for sniping at Holmes)

‘Not that I know much about cricket or football or racing,’ he added, as one might say, ‘not that I know much about slums, or sewage, or lice,’

I daresay lunch was one of the things you studied at the ’Varsity – the Assistant Commissioner always squirms when I say “’Varsity” to him, I don’t know why.’
‘To squirm at that word, sir,’ explained Bobby, ‘is one of the more important points of the U-ni-versity curriculum.’
(bonus points for making me think of Unseen Academicals)

Careful attention to word choice did more than reveal the author's skill as a wordsmith. It was central to unravelling the mystery of who committed the first murder. One key phrase of only three words, which when uttered the first time seemed nonsensical, made such perfect sense the next time it occurred that it actually enabled me to figure it out.   Since I "solve" whodunnits less often than Halley's Comet is visible from Earth, this was in itself cause to love the book.  I did highlight its second occurrence but did not share the quote in case anyone reading this wants to start the book without knowing whodunnit. 
 
It's a mark of how well the book is structured that working out the whodunnit was made easier for me because the why had been discreetly telegraphed earlier. Thus the lengthy confessional exposition at the end of the book contained few surprises. The journey to that point however was interesting and engaging despite the ultimate answers being fairly clear. 
 
I scored this book 4.75/5 because my one slight niggle was that it was a little longer than it needed to be. I recognise that that's a feature of literature in the pre-social media days, and the quality of the writing was so good that the excessive length was only a minor quibble. Nevertheless, since it was the first book in the series and thus introductions of the key recurring characters were necessary, I'm hoping that later books may be at least a touch tighter and tauter. I'll be finding out soon enough as I look forward to reading the second book soon.

 
The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan

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emotional hopeful 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? N/A

4.25

An upbeat start to the series, piquing my interest in book 2
A Gentleman Under the Mistletoe: A Cozy Regency Holiday Mystery by Grace Burrowes

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hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

The Heiress Bride by Madeline Hunter

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emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

A credible romance and a well constructed mystery, blended expertly
Home for Christmas in July: A Mistletoe Mountain Novel by Melissa F. Miller

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 14%.
As soon as I found out it was tied to the Spice sisters, I quit. I did not enjoy that series at all 
Of Paupers and Peers by Sheri Cobb South

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

A short, sweet treat. A delightful confection that delivered exactly what it ought to have - love and laughs. 
Witness for the Defense by Jonnie Jacobs

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mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Another taut legal thriller in the series. The resolution of the core mystery was very adroitly done, tying in a secondary arc running through the story. The emotional wounds left after the dénouement were a nice touch of realism, too.