Lessons in Crime edited by Martin Edwards

As soon as I heard about this collection of mysteries set in academia, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. Lessons in Crime contains 15 short stories that span just shy of a century of crime writing. There are stories set in day schools, boarding schools, elite universities, and in adult education centres. Inside this book you will find stories by well-known writers of crime fiction, like Arthur Conan Doyle and Dorothy L. Sayers, and a few you might not have heard of before, like Miriam Sharman, whose story “Battle of Wits” most certainly did not aid me in falling asleep when I read it before bed. Although, I tried to savour it, I absolutely inhaled this collection. Thank goodness for rereading. 

“The Greek Play” by H.C. Bailey (1932)

Mr. Fortune and his wife have been invited by her goddaughter to a performance of Antigone being put on by her school. Commonly thought of as the girls equivalent of Eton, this elite school, populated by girls of the gentry, has recently started accepting scholarship students, much to the disgust of many of the students, not to mention the snobbish adults connected with the school. One girl in particular has been having a pretty rough time of it, which is why the goddaughter has invited “the Cherub”—as she refers to Reggie. She senses that something is brewing, though she doesn’t know what, but she wants to Reggie on the spot when the pot boils over.

“The Adventure of the Priory School” by Arthur Conan Doyle (1904)

Sherlock Holmes is called to the north of England to investigate the disappearance of the son of the Duke of Holdernesse from his school. It is very clever but there is a lot in the way of explanation from someone other than Watson. We are meant to assume Sherlock has already figured out and I just found the conclusion a bit clunky.

“The Missing Undergraduate” by Henry Wade (1933)

Detective Inspector John Poole is called down to Oxford to investigate the disappearance of an undergraduate. Having attended Oxford himself, he knows his way around and heads straight to St. Peter’s College. The investigation takes him all over Oxford and London coming to an unexpected, and eventful, climax. I loved this one!

“The Gilded Pupil” by Ethel Lina White (1936)

“The essential part of this tale is that Ann Shelley was an Oxford M.A.” (115)

Ann Shelley takes the position of governess to a millionaire’s 15-year-old daughter, Stella. Stella is unruly and unwashed, but with an above average intelligence. This one was smart and fun. Stella, Ann, and Ann’s old governess prove their wits against a gang of baddies. So good!

“Murder at Pentecost” by Dorothy L. Sayers (1933)

Montague Egg, wine salesman, insert himself into a conversation he overhears between two Oxford men. After which he asks the way to Pentecost College, where he plans to make a sale. One of the men, Radcott, informs him that the master of the college has been murdered. In this one we see some of the inner workings of the Oxford colleges. While, I am a fan of Dorothy L . Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey stories, Montague Egg does not feel like a caricature—as I hate to admit—Wimsey often does.

As someone who has spent a lot of time in academic libraries trying to get work done, while being driven to distraction by loud talkers, I found this part particularly funny. 

“Prove it, if you like. Take my gown, toddle across to the Bodder, march straight in past the showcases and through the little wicket marked ‘Readers Only’, into Duke Humphrey’s Library; do what you like, short of stealing the books or setting fire to the place and if anybody says anything to you, I’ll order six dozen of anything you like. That’s fair, isn't it?”

Mr. Egg accepted this offer with alacrity, and in a few moments, arrayed in a scholar’s gown, was climbing the stair that leads to England’s most famous library. With a slight tremor, he pushed open the swinging glass door and plunged into the hallowed atmosphere of mouldering leather that distinguishes such temples of learning.

Just inside, he came upon Dr. Moyle in conversation with the doorkeeper. Mr. Egg, bending nonchalantly to examine an illegible manuscript in a showcase, had little difficulty in hearing what they said, since like all official attendants upon reading-rooms, they took no trouble to lower their voices. (145)

I love that idea that a person could just swan their way into the Duke Humfrey’s Library. Too fun!

As a side note, the correct spelling of Duke Humfrey’s Library appears to be with an “f”, not a “ph” as it appears in the above quotation. However, the library is named after Humphrey of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Gloucester (1390-1447). I have no idea why the spelling is different, but I would love to find out. Perhaps, I need to devote more than five minutes researching it.

“Randolph Hall” by Michael Gilbert (2000)

This one reads like a very well executed children’s adventure story. After a suspected attempted break-in at Ranulph Hall Preparatory School for Boys, three school boys Colin, Ivo and Drew—who refer to themselves as the CID—decide to take matters into their own hands. There is a gun fight between the boys and during a second break-in. When the school calls in their lawyers, to make certain it is lawful to shoot as burglars. Soon it is discovered a famous diamond that went missing 15 years ago is thought to be hidden somewhere in the school. A hunt to find the diamond commences, so it can be returned to its rightful owner before the baddies put in another appearance. 

“The Field of Philippi” by E.W. Hornung (1905)

A group of Old Boys return to their school for the Founder’s Day festival. Among the festivities is the Old Boy’s Match, and one of the Old Boys who will be playing in the match is a professional cricket player. I know next to nothing about cricket, but you do not need to know a thing about cricket to enjoy this story. This has all the elements of a boarding school story with old resentments—which get resolved by the end—sneaking out of the dormitories, and pulling one over on the Head. I loved that this is another one from this collection that does not have a murder and to be honest the plot reminded me of something that would happen in a P.G. Wodehouse story. The mystery is light, heartwarming, and just good fun.

“Lesson in Anatomy” by Michael Innes (1946)

This one was fairly bonkers. Fun, but bonkers. At Nessfield University, Professor Finlay’s final anatomy lecture of the year is known for getting a bit wild. Known for being an excellent teacher, it is only in the final lecture that he gives into his flair for the dramatic, and the students do enjoy playing up to it! 

For the lecture was at once a festival, a rag, and a genuine display of virtuosity. It took place in this large anatomy theatre. Instead of disjointed limbs and isolated organs there was a whole new cadaver for the occasion. And upon this privileged corpse Finlay rapidly demonstrated certain historical developments of his science to an audience in part attentive and in part concerned with lowering skeletons from the rafters, releasing various improbable living creatures—lemurs and echidnas and opossums—to roam the benches, or contriving what quainter japes they could think up. On one famous occasion the corpse itself had been got at, and at the first touch of the professor’s scalpel had awakened to an inferno of noise presently accounted for by the discovery that its inside consisted chiefly of alarm clocks. Nor were these diversions and surprises all one-sided, since Finlay himself, entering into the spirit of the occasion, had more than once been known to forestall his students with some extravagance of his own. (196)

It is not just the setting of this one that is ridiculous, the motivation for the crime is… let’s just say, odd. It was a fun read, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if the conclusion had not felt so far removed from the initial premise.

“Dover Goes to School” by Joyce Porter (1978)

This one has a slightly disorienting beginning. 

Detective Chief Inspector Dover was a creature of habit. Whenever he entered a room he made a point of selecting the most comfortable-looking seat and heading straight for it. On this occasion, as he waddled across the threshold of the large old-fashioned bathroom at Skelmers Hall College, he was not embarrassed by choice.

The rim of the bath was definitely out and he didn't fancy the three-legged stool. That left only one place where 241 pounds of flab could be safely deposited, and the Chief Inspector sank gratefully onto the oval of polished mahogany. That flight of stairs up from the ground floor had taken it out of him. (221)

I think we can imagine where Dover is sitting. The question is, why are we following this man into the bathroom? And why does it appear that he is merely there to hang out? As well as providing some insight into Dover’s character, this next part explains things for us.

It was Inspector Howard’s first encounter with members of the prestigious Murder Squad and he was understandably somewhat diffident. Still, a man had to do what a man had to do. He cleared his throat. “Er—excuse me, sir.”

Dover’s mean little eyes opened slowly and balefully. “What?”

“Your—er—feet, sir.”

“What about ‘em?”

“They’re resting on the—er—body, sir.”

Dover glanced down and with ill grace shifted his boots back a couple of inches from the corpse that lay sprawled, in pyjamas and dressing gown, over the bathroom floor. “Thought you were supposed to be telling us what’s happened,” he observed nastily. (221-22)

And that about sums up Dover. He is a fairly awful individual who takes as much pleasure in being unpleasant to his suspects as he does in his food and drink. Oh, and in his cigarettes. After smoking his colleague’s on the way to the scene, he has no qualms about absolving a woman from suspicion who he is about to interview when she offers him the rest of her pack.. 

Enough about Dover. Although, his presence does dominate this story, I shall try to put him to the side. 

A man is found strangled in the bathroom of Skelmers Hall College, an Adult Education Centre. As the victim is a well-known building contractor and a County Councillor, not to mention a massive flirt, there are a number of suspects, basically everyone who was in the college overnight, in fact.

I cannot say I grew to love Dover over the course of this story, but I did enjoy how disagreeable he was to everyone around him. And he does get his collar in the end, so he’s not a complete idiot either.

“When the Deaf Can Hear” by Malcolm Gair (1959)

This one was very short, so I don’t want to say too much. Some money is missing from a locked room at a school, known as the Turf Room, which is part of the cricket pavilion. Only a small group of students who had access to the Turf Room knew of the money. A detective is called in by the headmaster, who is particularly disappointed in the events because of his fondness for cricket.

“Low Marks for Murder” by Herbert Harris (1973)

This one is very simple. George Faraday, the languages master plans to kill the headmaster of the school, Dr. Theodore Whittington. Faraday is having an affair with Whittington’s wife, Rhona. But it is not just his passion for Rhona that motivates Faraday. The man fancies being given the position of assistant head, which Whittington has put a stop to, not because he suspects Faraday is having an affair with his wife, but because he simply does not like the Faraday. And as Faraday plants to kill Whittington, I would say he shows very good judgment.

There was a surprisingly racy part in this story, which I would not have expected to find in a British Library Crime Classic. However, it is perfectly suited to crime fiction of the seventies and section I found surprising was merely one sentence long.

“The Harrowing of Henry Pygole” by Colin Watson (1974)

Two boys in sixth form plot a practical joke to get back at one of the boys in their form, Henry Pygole.

Henry Pygole was one of those people who make cleverness offensive by wrapping it up in humility. There was always a sort of dubious smile on his face, as if he knew he was going to make a balls-up of whatever happened to be on hand at the moment. He didn’t, of course. He came tops. Time after time. In everything. But he forever had that droopy, self-deprecating air.

One remembers particularly how diffident dear Henry looked on the afternoon of the inter-house tennis finals. That was the day when Sweet and I decided that something would have to be done about him. (276)

This story did not at all go where I was expecting. It was fabulously shocking.

“Dog in the Night-time” by Edmund Crispin (1954)

This was a clever little mystery. Still grieving her father’s death, Ann Cargill asks her professor, Gervase Fen, Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford, to accompany her in the opening of her father’s safe. Her father’s solicitor died before getting the grant of probate of the will, and Ann’s uncle, who been made her guardian, has also been made administrator of the estate in her behalf. 

“I’m probably being several sorts of a fool,” said Ann, as soon as they were settled with glasses in their hands. “But here goes, anyway... I don’t know if you know anything about my family, but my mother died years ago. I’m an only child, and my father—well, the important thing about him, for the moment, is that he had a passion for jewels.

“Jewels weren’t his business. They were his hobby. And two or three months ago he sank an enormous amount of money—about three-quarters of his capital, I should think—into buying a single diamond that he’d set his heart on, a huge thing, quite flawless.” (295)

Don’t you just love the idea of someone’s “hobby” being jewels?! And not just researching jewels, but buying them! Like I said at the outset, this one was clever.

“Battle of Wits” by Miriam Sharman (1967)

Told in just one scene, this is a thrilling story that could have come straight out of a Hitchcock film. A father calls on the headmaster of his son’s former school after his son has been expelled. I read this right before bed and I can tell you I have never felt less sleepy while reading when horizontal.

“The Boy Who Couldn’t Read” by Jacqueline Wilson (1978)

It’s the first day of term after the Christmas holiday, and Mr. Croft decides to go easy on the 2As by reading to them from Enid Blyton’s The Mountain of Adventure. But David Bates prefers spending the time surreptitiously reading a book on astronomy. When Mr. Croft catches David, the teacher is most unpleasant, telling the boy to stop pretending, everyone knows he can’t read. With 10 minutes left until the end of class, Mr. Croft asks the children to draw a picture based on the story. Everyone but David hands one in, and Mr. Croft is none too happy about it. 

If you are sensitive to stories about children being treated poorly by adults, or just generally treated unfairly, this might be a hard read. But I assure you, it all turns out right in the end. 

This is my first time reading anything by Jacqueline Wilson. I know she is popular for her children’s fiction, and this story was so gripping that I feel like her other writing must be equally well-done. If you are reading this and you have read any of her novels, please let me know if there are any you can recommend.

And that is part of what makes me love these short story collections from British Library Publishing. Both the Crime Classics and the Women Writers series have such great collections of short stories. I always come away with at least a couple authors to bookmark for further discovery.

Thank you to British Library Publishing for kindly sending me a copy of Lesson in Crime for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.

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What I Got for Christmas!

My good friend, Gina, has done it again! She sent me the very best book and book-related gifts for Christmas. Gina shares her beautiful book collection at babsbelovedbooks.blogspot.com and you can also find her on Instagram. If you are not already following her, please do. She has fabulous taste in books and she also happens to be the loveliest person.

Her package arrived back in December—well before Christmas, might I add—but as no one would mistake me for being a punctual person, it has taken me until now to get my act together. I quickly realised  that I could not just share a few photos of these gifts on Instagram and leave it at that. Each gift was so perfect that I had to say a little something about each one, and in some cases more than a little something.

Let’s talk about the books first…

I have been wanting to read more of Monica Dickens’ books since inhaling Mariana a few years ago. I really love historical fiction and children’s books, so I’m doubly excited to read The Great Fire, which is about 12-year-old Peter, who was orphaned during the Great Plague only to have to face more hardship in the Great Fire of London in 1666. This is a very slim book. So I’m saving it for the perfect quiet evening.

Two Joans at the Abbey is the thirtieth—yes, you read that correctly—book in Elsie J. Oxenham’s Abbey Girls series. This series ran from 1914 to 1959 with 38 books in all. Being a fan of Antonia Forest, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, and Margaret Biggs, I’ve been dying to branch out to other authors of girls boarding school stories. All I really know about this series is that the girls learn folk dancing, and as a former ballet dancer, that is basically all I need to know going into this series. And yes, it probably isn’t the best idea to read a title so far in as my first foray into the series. But if I like this one I will be sure to start from the beginning, or with the earliest book I can get my hands on.

Last year, I read All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything. In it, Claire Harman explores the life of Katherine Mansfield through the lens of ten of her short stories. In tandem, I read the stories being discussed, all of which can be found in the collection Wild Places: Selected Stories. I had not read anything by Mansfield before this, though of course I had heard of her in relation to Virginia Woolf, as Mansfield is a contemporary of Woolf and their stream of conscious style is often compared. Interestingly, I found one story of Mansfield’s, “The Garden Party”, reminded me of Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, which was published three years later. I’m sure I’m not the first person to make this connection and this is in no way intended as a slam on Woolf. I have read and appreciated all of Woolf’s novels, minus The Waves, which, being a tad intimidated by it, I have yet to read. It is just fun to spot these connections and speculate on them. I do not think it is a stretch to imagine that Woolf may have been inspired by Mansfield’s writing. Anyway, after finishing All Sorts of Lives and the corresponding short stories, I was pleased to find Mansfield’s “Carnations” included in Stories for Summer and Days By the Pool, a collection of short stories in the British Library Women Writers series that came out in June 2024. Published in 1920, Bliss and Other Stories is Katherine Mansfield’s second short story collection. I’m beyond excited to dive in. I’ve already read the first three, “Prelude”, “Je Ne Parle Pas Français”, and “Bliss”, but I will certainly be reading them again.

Rosamunde Pilcher is a favourite author of mine. The only reason I have never done an in-depth review of any of her books on the blog is because she is already so popular that I doubt my ability to say anything about her writing that has not already been said. Her heartwarming stories are usually set in Cornwall or Scotland. In Voices in Summer, the main character convalesces in Cornwall after an operation, while her husband goes on his annual fishing trip to Scotland and Wild Mountain Thyme begins with a trip to Scotland. I haven’t read either of these, so I’m very excited to add them to the growing number of Rosamunde Pilcher books I have on my shelves.

Young Mrs. Savage by D.E. Stevenson is another one set in Scotland. Widowed during the war, Dinah is raising four children on her own, while battling with memories of her troubled marriage. Despite her hardships, she is quick to dismiss offers of pity. But when her twin bother, Dan, sends her on a trip with the children to stay with their former Nannie at their old family home, she puts herself in the way of adventure. In my experience, D.E. Stevenson’s books are a delight. I do not expect this one will be any different. 

I recently purchased another edition of Elizabeth Goudge’s biography The Joy of the Snow from Girls Gone By Publishers. They republish rare and out-of-print books by authors of girls’ school stories. If you are looking for a copy of The Joy of Snow, as of this going up Girls Gone By still have copies in stock, but as they are a small independent publisher, they do small print runs which sell out fast. If you have already checked Blackwell's or your local bookstore, the publisher may still have stock and you can order directly from them. I was particularly interested in reading the additional material that edition boasted, the introduction, and letters written by Goudge that had not been published before. But I was beyond pleased when Gina sent me a vintage edition. There is something so special about reading from a book with a past. This one has a gift inscription from someone thanking their friend for "a delightful house party". How lovely!

Many of you might remember my failed attempt at reading the original 56 Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, last year. It was basically the project that inspired me to start a blog in the first place. But reading and reviewing one Nancy Drew book per week—two if I had both the original text and revised text books on my shelf—proved to be too time consuming. I should have done a test run of the first few books before I started the project, so I could fail privately first and then adjust the project before going public with it. Oh, hindsight! 

I do hope to get back to reviewing these, eventually. Although, I have to admit that many of the revised texts, were so bad that I was dreading writing the reviews and having to spend even more time with them. The original text Nancys are much more to my taste and we mostly have Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson’s writing to thank for that. She wrote 23 of the first 30 original text Nancy Drew books. Unfortunately, along with making Nancy Drew a more passive character, the revised texts also cut out much of the scene setting and description. But Wirt Benson didn’t just write Nancy Drew books. She penned 135 books in her lifetime, under various pen names, including Mildred Benson and Mildred A. Wirt. 

Kristie at College came out in 1960, having been first published a year earlier under the title Quarry Ghost. I believe Quarry Ghost is the American edition, as the copy of Kristie at College that Gina gave me is from UK publisher The Children’s Press. The book is about a skin-diving journalism student who gets herself involved in some controversy around a missing dinosaur relic. There is no mention of a ghost on the blurb of my edition, so I will be interested to see which title feels more appropriate to the story. 

Penny Parker was Wirt Benson’s favourite series to write. She said that Penny Parker was a better Nancy Drew than Nancy Drew. I was hesitantly optimistic when I picked up Tale of the Witch Doll, the first book in the Penny Parker series. If I didn’t already have a number of books on my shelves and even more on my wishlist I would have read every book in the series immediately after finishing that first one. How lucky am I that I get to read the second book, The Vanishing Houseboat, in this gorgeous first edition?! If you are interested in reading this series, Wildside Press has republished all of the titles in very affordable paperbacks that you can find on the Wildside Press website, your local bookstore, and other online booksellers.

In addition to writing under his own name, John Dickson Carr had a number of pen names, including Carter Dickson. I haven’t read any of his novels yet, but I have read and enjoyed a number of his short stories thanks to their inclusion in British Library Crime Classics' short story collections. If you have been on my blog for more thirty seconds you will know that I love their books. It was one of my greatest joys of last year that British Library Publishing sent me my first physical copy of a book for review. I love reading their titles, getting to review them is always something I look forward to, and when I’m not reading or reviewing them, they look very smart on my shelves. Gina has heard me talk about these books a lot, and so being the intuitive person that she is she sent me two titles by John Dickson Carr, The Black Spectacles and He Who Whispers. 

Even more so than the Mildred A. Wirt Benson titles—though I will certainly cherish them—The Skeleton in the Clock has to be the most precious book that Gina sent. There is no denying it’s a gorgeous edition, but it’s so much more than that. This copy is from Gina’s grandmother’s collection. I cannot express what an honour it is that I get to be the caretaker of such a special book. 

As I have the pleasure of adding more vintage books to my shelves, I feel like the guardian of these volumes. I do not feel I own them so much as I am giving them a place to live until they pass on to their next caretaker. 

And now for the other beautiful bits…

The little charm is actually one of an assorted set of The Wind in the Willows inspired stitch markers (for knitting or crocheting) from Beneath the Leaf. Gina had these custom made for me with my love of Mole in mind. And if you’re wondering… yes, I did cry when I found that out. There are ten in all and no two are the same. I wasn’t able to capture all of them together to my liking, but there are a number of similarly beautiful stitch markers, as well as, charm bracelets, necklaces, and earrings in her shop.

Let's take a moment to admire the Nancy Drew and Anne of Green Gables tea towels. How pretty do they look next to my favourite editions from my Nancy Drew and L.M. Montgomery collection?! I have admired the work of watercolour artist Elizabeth Wade for a while now, and these are exactly what I would have picked out for myself from her designs. And somehow Gina just knew! They look so nice pictured with my most prized books from these series that I’m thinking of hanging them on the wall of my study next to the shelves that house my children’s books. Elizabeth Wade also has prints of her stunning illustrations on her website.

I almost forgot to talk about the Dean Street Press postcards! Each postcard is of a different cover from one of the books they have published. The ones that Gina sent me are Bewildering Cares by Winifred Peck, The Ginger Cat Mystery by Robin Forsythe, and Miss Read’s Fresh From the Country. You can see a glimpse of them in the above photo, as well as a The Wind in the Willows inspired calendar. It comes from a shop called Farmhouse Greetings and features the beautiful illustrations of Linda Cook DeVona’s. As someone who is easily distracted every time I check something on my phone—don’t get me started on how much time I waste every time I go to the search page on Instagram—analogue anything is most welcome! I have posted it on the wall next to the desk in my study and I refer to it daily. 

Gina also sent some delicious seasonal gummy candies, which disappeared before I could photograph them. You might say I have a bit of a sweet tooth. 

Oh, and let’s not forget Clark, because Gina certainly didn’t! She picked out the cutest little teddy, who looks like Clark’s teddy twin. They are so cute together! Clark is a lover, not a fighter, so while this little teddy is meant for chewing, Clark prefers to rest his head in his new friend’s lap while they snooze together. 

Gina really is an incredible gift giver. Every time I open something from her I ask, “How did you know?!” She has impeccable taste, and one just has to scroll through her Instagram or visit her blog to see it in action. She is also kind, dependable, caring, and thoughtful. Basically, she is all the good things one wishes people would be, and many of us works in progress aspire to be.

I feel it would be remiss of me if I failed to mention that the little mice and the Emma Bridgewater mug featured in these photos come from a favourite shop of mine, Our House. The mice came with the names Madame Maude and Woolens Wallace, but they are just plain Maudie and Wally around our house. The adorable Year in the Country Nativity mug is an early Valentine’s Day present from my husband. The cutest part is the mouse(?) dressed as a sheep. It’s impossible not to smile while I sip my morning coffee from it. 

Next post, we will be back to the regular scheduled program with a book review of another fabulous short story collection from British Library Crime Classics.

Let's conclude this long and wordy post with one final photo of Clark with his teddy, because I simply cannot resist. 

Happy reading, friends!

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A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor

I have a confession to make. I often write reviews, planning to post them at some future date—after I have let my thoughts on the book simmer a little longer and given the review a final edit—but often those reviews don’t get posted at all. My review of Elizabeth Taylor’s A View of the Harbour is one of them. I loved this book and thought about it long after reading it. I had planned to share my review in the summertime. Well, summer came and went, and what do you know? This review was still sitting in the drawer. So this is a book that is set in the warm weather, but I actually think Elizabeth Taylor’s writing lends well to the quiet, still days of winter. I will explain. 

A couple of years ago I read another of Elizabeth Taylor’s novels, Palladian. At the time, I thought it was very well written, but maybe a bit dull. 

Perhaps the setting of my reading was partially to blame, as I mostly read it while sitting down at the harbour in St. John’s, Newfoundland. I honestly can’t remember a thing about the novel now. Even reading the blurb doesn’t ring any bells. It’s quite likely that, for me anyway, Elizabeth Taylor novels are best read in a quiet, distraction-free environment.

Anyway, I’d heard wonderful things about Elizabeth Taylor so decided to keep trying. I’m so glad I did!

She wanted to watch the great dappled waves riding in to the foot of the cliffs, breaking and crumbling and scurrying back in confusion, to be conscious of the pulse of the lighthouse, to see once more visitors with folded raincoats stepping into rowing-boats named Nancy or Marigold or Adeline; the moving water, the sauntering people, the changing sky, the wrinkled moonlight on the sea, and fishermen coming out of the Anchor on Saturday nights, standing round the lamp-post singing Sweet Genevieve. 

A View of the Harbour is a subtle novel. At first, I thought it might be a great deal too subtle for me. But by about the end of chapter two I started to get the characters straight and I realised that because this is a novel where not too much happens in terms of plot, you start to pay attention to all the little things that get missed in easier to read books.

By the time I finished this book I was wondering why in all my time at university I had never heard Elizabeth Taylor mentioned. I hear you Elizabeth Taylor fans saying, “You must have been taking the wrong courses.” Well, quite. She is a writer that is meant to be studied. Although, the casual reader could enjoy this book just fine. I know I did!

This book is set in the seemingly sleepy coastal village of Newly, where everyone knows everyone, and knows everything about everyone else. Well, almost.

Tory is divorced and involved with her neighbour and best friend’s husband. Beth is so absorbed by her writing that she doesn’t notice her husband is in love with Tory. Their teenage daughter is more perceptive than her mother and is disgusted by the two.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bracey, an invalid who drives her daughters to distraction with her changeable moods and thirst for information on the goings on in the village. There is a real sense of claustrophobia in the houses around the harbour, but especially in theirs. 

When a retired naval officer visits the town with the intention of painting the picturesque harbour, he can’t help but stir things up.

There are so many real moments of both humour and longing in this novel. It’s heartbreaking and beautiful. Oh, and terrifically well written. So well written that I need to go back and reread Palladian and see what it is that I missed. This time I will take my own advice and read it in a more distraction free setting, because Elizabeth Taylor's writing is something to be savoured.

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Tour de Force by Christianna Brand

I picked up Christianna Brand’s 1955 novel, Tour de Force, hot on the heels of finishing another British Library Crime Classic, Ethel Lina White’s The Wheel Spins. It crossed my mind as I was trying to decide what to read after finishing The Wheel Spins that whatever book I landed on was going to have a tough act to follow. I was a bit wary of starting another Crime Classic, if I’m being honest, because it couldn’t possibly be as good as The Wheel Spins, or so I thought.

I could not have prepared myself for Christianna Brand’s quality of writing, plotting, and character development. Of course, I had heard positive reviews about her books, but as we all know, taste is subjective and what one person loves, another might loath. But in my opinion, the hype around Christianna Brand’s writing is well deserved. Now, in some ways this one is a very different book from The Wheel Spins, so I hesitate to pit these two against each other. The Wheel Spins is atmospheric and tense. There is a lot of imagery and fine writing in that book. The other thing that makes it special is that no murder takes place on the page. On the other hand, Tour de Force follows the traditional trajectory of a body being found a quarter of the way through the book, which is not a bad thing. There is a reason mystery novels tend to follow this progression, because it works well as it both provides the author with enough time to set up the world of the novel, and then on the other side of that there is ample time remaining to solve the murder.

Another feature of the book that I recognised and was both intrigued by and a bit worried about is that the premise of Tour de Force reminded me of an Agatha Christie. Not necessarily a bad sign, as there are many books by her that I love. But Evil Under the Sun isn’t an absolute favourite. It is a fine book and I will likely find myself reading it again in the future, but it didn’t blow me away. (Christie fans, please don’t come for me.) Similar to Evil Under the Sun, Tour de Force is about a detective going on holiday to the seaside. Instead of Hercule Poirot, our detective is Inspector Cockrill or Cockie, as he is so endearingly referred. Brand even has her detective refer to Poirot, so perhaps she was aware that her readers might make the connection.

It was exasperating to be able to do so little, to feel so hamstrung without his little black bag, the graphite and the foot-rule and the magnifying-glass and all the rest of it, backed up by the vast departments of Scotalanda Yarda. All one could do was to emulate M. Poirot, use the little grey cells and observe the psychological behaviour pattern of those concerned. (158)

Cockrill also refers to Norbert Davis’s Detective Inspector Carstairs on more than one occasion and Cockrill has brought one of his detective books along with him on holiday to read on the beach. The Case of the Leaping Blonde is the title of that detective novel, which I suspect Brand had a giggle over when inserting it into her book. Although, Cockrill does not seem to align himself with that fictitious hardboiled detective.

And on the terrace above them, Inspector Cockill stired restlessly in his deck-chair and tried to get back to Carstairs and could not concentrate. Carstairs never fell in love: perhaps because his eyes were so constantly narrowed that he was unable to recognize a pretty girl when he saw one. Inspector Cockrill, on the other hand, recognized a pretty girl only too easily and nowadays sometimes worried in case he should grow into a dirty old man; and he could not help being fond of this particular girl — and sorry to see her making such a mess of things. (48)

Cockrill has flown from Britain to Italy on a package tour. After a bit of touring around, taking in the sights with a night here, a day there, the group ends up on a small island off the Italian coast, where they will spend the duration of the holiday. And what a holiday they have!

One of the group is murdered, and Cockrill believes it must be one of his fellow beachgoers that has done it. But as he spent the afternoon reading with a view of all of the suspects from his spot on the clifftop, it seems virtually impossible that any of them could have snuck away unnoticed to commit the crime.

So much for lying all day in the sun and reading his detective novel, like he had planned. He could just wait around for the local police force to find the murderer, only they aren’t so particular about who they charge with the crime, just so long as justice is seen to be done. After a brief stay inside the damp underground tomb they call a jail, Cockrill is determined that none of his fellow compatriots will be wrongfully committed. Did I mention that not even Cockrill is safe from wrongful arrest?

I hesitate to share too much about this book, because there are a few twists that are really very well done and I would hate to spoil. But I do want to give you a sample of Brand’s really wonderful writing.

It was half past four. In the sky the sun was high, glittering down upon the curly blue-green tiles of the hotel roofs, on the long lines of the walls, studded like a dovecot with rounded arches of windows and doorways, facing out over the sea. Behind the white buildings, the chill pines whispered together; mourning their lack of the colour and scent of the rose and geranium, the jasmine and myrtle, massed on the many-coloured, pebble-patterned terraces below: and it seemed to Inspector Cockrill, who on the whole is not given to fancies, that something of its cold breath struck through the windless heat of the afternoon. Despite his mistrust of the forthcoming performance, he found he could not stifle a rising excitement oddly at war with a sense of foreboding and dread. (190-191)

Isn’t that wonderful? Brand’s descriptions throughout the book of the setting and characters are so well-drawn. From the start, I never needed to remind myself of where the action was taking place and there was no confusion over the characters. From the start, I had a clear picture of what each of them looked like. We even get descriptions of the clothing characters are wearing, but without it dragging down the narrative, because the descriptions we get always have a purpose. No extemporaneous writing here!

And I think that ease of narrative is what makes this book particularly good. I appreciated the writing as I was reading, of course. But it is not until the very end that I fully realised just how brilliantly this story is woven. When you get to the end you will start to remember little throwaway tidbits that were actually breadcrumbs Brand left for us to find our way to the murderer.

Thank you to British Library Publishing for kindly sending me a copy of Tour de Force for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own.

And I have to thank my lovely friend, Gina (@babsbelovedbooks on Instagram), for sending me two John Dickson Carr books for Christmas, which you can see in the image below. I cannot wait to read them! Thank you, Gina!

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