Day Off Week 48 2024

As I have remarked in the past even days off require organisation and yesterday could have been a better day for that. Anyway, I was up early enough and out to get a walk in and then a coffee at Kenwood House. Back here I watched the latest (nailbiting) University Challenge whoch I hadn't got to watch Monday. Through the day I read more of this Christmas detective novel I have mentioned, which is okay but I'm finding it difficult to remember who is who (not a problem if acted). In the evening, I watched the second episode of the current Wolf Hall. Brilliant as ever. Also got rid of a few more books at a charity shop, an ongoing task here.

Murder by the Book

Detective fiction is a very enjoyable form of literature. It is pretty undemanding but the plot usually gets you thinking at least. I must have read my first such fiction as a boy when I would go along to the mobile library that used to park at the end of our steet once a week. I don't know what the books I read were but they may have included Agatha Christie I've read one or two of those. The British Library have a series up and running that I have dipped into. When we were in Ross-on-Wye recently there was a lovely bookshop there and I bought Murder by the book artly as a memento. The book contains mostly very good short stories, mainly by authros I have not heard of. I thought it might have had more literary themes but apart from one story that refers to Ella Wheeler Wilcox, who I wasn't sure was real (she is -see here) there was nothing like that. It was more books per se and writing them. I'll probably buy some more some day.

10 Poisons used in Agatha Christie Novels

This was prompted by a question on last Monday's University Challenge

1. Cyanide (The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, And Then There Were None, A Pocketful of Rye, Sparkling Cyanide). A rapidly acting, potentially deadly chemical that can exist in various forms. Cyanide can be a colourless gas, such as hydrogen cyanide (HCN) or cyanogen chloride (CNCl), or a crystal form such as sodium cyanide (NaCN) or potassium cyanide (KCN)..
2. Arsenic (4.50 From Paddington). A chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33.
3. Strychnine (The Mysterious Affair at Styles). A white, odourless, bitter crystalline powder that can be taken by mouth, inhaled (breathed in), or mixed in a solution and given intravenously (injected directly into a vein). It is a strong poison.
4. Digitalis (Appointment with Death). Poison derived form the foxglove.
5. Morphine (Sad Cypress). An opiate painkiller that can kill in the right dosage.
6. Thallium (The Pale Horse). A chemical element with the symbol Tl and atomic number 81.
7. Coniine (Five Little Pigs) an alkaloid extracted from hemlock, it works peripherally as a neurotoxin, causing death by respiratory paralysis. Less than 200 micrograms is fatal.
8. Bacillus anthracis (Cards On The Table). Gram-positive and rod-shaped bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease to livestock and, occasionally, to humans.
9. Phosphorus (Dumb Witness). A chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15.
10. Belladonna also known as Deadly Nightshade (The Caribbean Mystery, The Big Four). Poisonous plant.

(Sleeping tablets feature in Lord Edgware Dies).

From My Christmas Blog 1

Here is a nice selection of detective fiction for Christmas time. The last volume (Christmas in the snow) fails as it is not really Christmassy or snowy enough all through. See here.

Some Christmas Reading 2017

One of the joy of Christmas is getting down my collection of Christmas Books, which I try to add to year by year. Last year I bought a detective novel Murder at the Old Vicarage a Christma Mystery by Jill McGown, which I started but only got a few pages in. This year I made a fresh assault and finished it. I think that when I bought it I assumed that it was one of those old books like The Santa Klaus Murder or Mystery in White (1938 and 1938 respectivey). It was actually published in1988 (as Redemption) but works more or less within the conventions of the traditonal genre. It was easy to read and kept me guessing to the end and that is all you can really ask of such a novel. There was bags of snow and the action takes place over the Christmas period but it is not very Christmassy.

In the bookshop a few weeks ago I saw two books on carols that looked interesting. I went for Carols from Kings by Alexandra Coghlan over Andrew Gant's broader work, probably becasue it was a hardback. I am not a particular fan of the King's service, owever, and so a lot of the content was rather list on me, although I enjoyed learning about the history of carols and liked her list of Christmas music worth hearing (see below).

Page 189

OLD CAROLS, NEW LIVES

Carols continue to evolve. even today. thanks to the invention and creativity of pop and Jazz artists. But which are the covers worth exploring?

• Jeff Buckley's stripped-back recording of the 'Corpus Christi Carol' is hauntingly lovely and deeply persistent

• Once in Royal is transformed into a lilting country song in the hands of Mary Chapin Carpenter.

• No choir could bring the same poised solemnity to 'We Three Kings' that Ella Fitzgerald somehow achieves.

• Who knew Peter Warlock's 'Bethlehem Down' was hiding a slinky jazz number under its robes? The David Rees-Williams Trio take this beautiful carol to a late-night piano bar, with wonderful results.

• Sufjan Stevens makes a laid-back Indie ballad out of Germany's beautiful Christmas hymn 'Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming'.

• Bert Jausch retains all the simplicity of 'In the Bleak Midwinter' adding his own spontaneity to create a gorgeous pop song.

• 'Little Drummer Boy' gets some unexpected urban edge from Lauryn Hill.

Sleep no more

I couldn't resist this collection of short stories by P D James when I saw it the other day. I enjoyed last Christmas's Mistletoe murder collection and thought this would be nice too. I've read it already partly because it is not as Christmassy as the last one, only one story being really of that sort. It is an interesting phenomenon the detective story and the late P D James is clearly a master of it. Very enjoyable.

Ian Rankin Knots and Crosses

As we were going to be in Edinburgh, I decided to try the first Rebus novel by Ian Rankin Knots and crosses. The Edinburgh setting is not crucial but there was some pleasure in picking up on the few geographical references. The book is deservedly considered a decent one. No doubt a knowledge of the whole series would add to the pleasure. Like many such novels it deals with some fairly sordid details. Perhaps the most interesting element is the idea that Rebus is some sort of backslidden Christian. It would be interesting to see how that plays out in other novels.

10 Fictional Addresses of 10 Fictional Detectives

Elliott Brown from Birmingham, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

1. Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker St, London W1, England (Arthur Conan Doyle)
2. Hercule Poirot, 56B Whitehaven Mansions, Sandhurst Square, London W1, England (Agatha Christie)
3. Miss Marple, Danemead, High Street, St Mary Mead, England (Agatha Christie)
4. Jules Maigret, 132 Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, Paris, France (Georges Simenon)
5. Sam Spade, 891 Post St, San Franciso, CA, USA (Dashiell Hammett)
6. Philip Marlowe, #615 Cahuenga Bldg, Hollywood Blvd, LA CA, USA (Raymond Chandler)
7. John Rebus, 17 Arden Street, St Leonards, Edinburgh, Scotland (Ian Rankin)
8. Lord Peter Wimsey, 110A Piccadilly, London W1 and Bredon Hall, Duke's Denver, Norfolk, England (Dorothy L Sayers)
9. Brother Cadfael, Shrewsbury Abbey, Shrewsbury, Salop, England (Ellis Peters)
10. Albert Campion, 17a Bottle St, Piccadilly, London W1, England (Marjorie Allingham)

Book Buys September on

We had a nice little series going, which is complete until August, simply recording monthly book buys. It all went a bit quiet on that front and so I haven't reported for a while and am not entirely sure where we are. I did mention getting a copy of Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. I had wanted it for a while but having started it I haven't really got into it. I also bought on impulse one day P D James interesting Talking about detective fiction which I have almost completed.

For another five weeks The Times were giving away Penguin paperbacks again on weekdays so I have another 20 or so of those. Some are titles I already had (eg Tlast of the Mohicans, The Moonstone, Frankenstein) but most I didn't. I read Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep which I had never tackled some of the science volumes.

That's all very secular. I have also purchased Malcom McLean's book on The Lord's Supper for the John Owen Centre reading group.