CLAIRE LADDS

Author of character-driven psychological literary fiction and other darker books, all with an emotional pull

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Spell the Month in Books: March

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<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>I have five crime-filled stories to share with you in my Spell the Month in Books post for March. This time they span the centuries in their settings, from the medieval to the twentieth century.

I have five crime-filled stories to share with you in my Spell the Month in Books post for March. This time they span the centuries in their settings, from the medieval to the twentieth century. The books I have chosen this time around are:

Mistress of the Art of Death – Ariana Franklin

Alienist The) – Caleb Carr

Remorseful Day (The) – Colin Dexter

Coroner’s Pidgin – Margery Allingham

Holy Disorders – Edmund Crispin

Every one of these is available in audiobook, so I’ve linked to that version, although available ebooks, paperbacks and hardcovers are all listed as well.

We begin with the Middle Ages. Children have disappeared and one murdered in Cambridge. Blame is placed on the Jews who go into hiding, much to the displeasure of the king, who relies on them for revenue. In desperation, he enlists Simon of Naples to help him, and he brings with him Ariana Aguila. She has a secret for fear of being accused of witchcraft – her skill in the study of corpses. In the course of her investigations, it becomes clear that the killer has noticed her involvement. Will the killer strike again – and this time, at her?

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Spell the Month in Books: February

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Here I am again with my spell the Month in Books choices! This time, I’m looking at a bookstack of crime and mystery stories which I have on my shelves and which contain a whole host of fantastic characters, whether detective/sleuth or criminal.

Here’s my list of books:

Fear in the Sunlight – Nicola Upson

Except the Dying – Maureen Jennings

Brat Farrar – Josephine Tey

Raffles – E.W. Hornung

Unnatural Habits – Kerry Greenwood

And then There Were None – Agatha Christie

Riddle of the Third Mile (The) – Colin Dexter

You Let Me In – Lucy Clarke

Fear in the Sunlight is one of Nicola Upson’s wonderful mysteries set between the wars and featuring the writer, Josephine Tey, as the sleuth. While Josephine is on holiday in Portmeiron to celebrate a friend’s fortieth birthday and to sign a film deal with Alfred Hitchcock for a novel she’s written, one of the group becomes the unfortunate object of a brutal and gruesome murder. The next day, it happens to another one of the party. Is there a serial killer on the loose? Josephine joins forces with Chief Inspector Penrose to find out as suspicion grows rife among the remaining guests and they fear for their lives.

The fantastic Victorian detective William Murdoch appears in Except the Dying. It is 1895, and the body of a pregnant girl is discovered in a freezing cold street in Toronto. Murdoch soon begins to think that her murder may well be an attempt to disguise the knowledge that she had been embroiled with a man belonging to one of the affluent families in the city. I find Murdoch such an endearing character, and I love his quirkiness, his inventiveness and his relationships with the other characters. As someone who has watched all of the Murdoch Mysteries episodes (many times!), it’s very difficult not to envisage Yannick Bisson as the Murdoch of the book. I don’t have a problem with that in the slightest…!

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Read Christie 2021: my January book choice – Crooked House

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I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was participating in the #ReadChristie2021 challenge, and as well as telling you what the official Agatha Christie team have chosen for their January read (The Hollow), I said that I had opted to read something different.

January’s challenge is to read a Christie book set in a grand house. Instead of The Hollow, I chose Crooked House, a book that I first read when I was about sixteen, and which I have recently watched on TV – in fact, this probably prompted my choice because I wanted to compare the original with the adaptation.

Plot

The Leonides family live together in a huge house on the edge of London. They had no idea that one of them could be capable of murder until Aristide Leonides, head of the household, was found poisoned.

Leonides had a regular injection of insulin which the murderer had substituted for eserine. Was the murderer a bit stupid? Whoever it was had not even removed the incriminating evidence. Or was there something much more sinister, much more evil at work here?

Charles Hayward is the son of the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard. He also is about to marry one of the household, Sophia Leonides. Solving this murder therefore becomes his priority and he sets about tracking down the culprit. But will the murderer strike again and, if so, who could possibly be next on the list – and why?

Of the standalone novels, it, for me, stands out as one of the best. It certainly didn’t fail me on that score when re-reading it this month. It has all the hallmarks of classic Golden Age mystery – the amateur sleuth, a tight cast of characters in a closed setting, in this case the English Country House, and one hell of a puzzle to solve. And in this case, it has the added impetus of making the reader seriously question their detecting beliefs, and what they actually want to believe. It is truly incredible (and I mean that in as many ways as you wish to take it).

I think of it often as I’m scanning my Christie bookshelves as one of the stories that really packed a punch for me because it left me truly shocked. No spoilers here, but if you’ve never read Crooked House, I thoroughly recommend it.

If you would like to read Crooked House (whether for the challenge or just for fun):

See it on Amazon UK here.

See it on Amazon US here.

(As always, my disclaimer: some of the links I use are my affiliate links. This means I may earn a small payment if you choose to buy through them. I only ever add affiliate links to books and products I have used and love, so you can always be sure that they are wholehearted recommendations from me.)

I would love to know if you decided to take up the Read Christie 2021 challenge, and if you did, what you decided to read for January and what you thought about your choice. Have you read Crooked House previously and, if so, what did you think of it (try to avoid spoilers in your comments, or mark them clearly beforehand, please, so others who don’t know the story can choose to skip over them).

Happy reading!

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Spell the Month in Books: January

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I began getting involved in ‘Spell the Month in Books’ on Instagram last year, having come across the hashtag and decided it looked like fun. If you don’t know, the idea is that you gather together a bookstack of titles and create the name of the relevant month with the first letter of the title of each book.

This year, I have decided to try and find books that fit into the crime and/or mystery category, and which I currently have in paperback in my bookcases. I can tell you already that finding certain letters of the month has been a challenge, and as much as I would love not to repeat a book in the twelve bookstacks for the year, I get the distinct feeling that there might be one or two that I have no choice to repeat, unless I go out and deliberately buy books beginning with specific letters! I’m resisting doing that, as I have so many unread books that I’m determined to use ones I’ve got.

This is my chosen Spell the Month in Books bookstack for January:

Jamaica Inn – Daphne du Maurer

Among the Mad – Jacqueline Winspear

Nemesis – Agatha Christie

Under the Dragon’s Tail – Maureen Jennings

A Shilling for Candles – Josephine Tey

Return of Sherlock Holmes (The) – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

You Let Me In – Lucy Clarke

You’ll notice a few Golden Age (or modern versions of Golden Age) mysteries among this lot – and being the Agatha Christie obsessive that I am, I couldn’t resist adding one in. However, this group ranges from Victorian to contemporary, and spans detective, suspense and thriller books.

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Read Christie 2021 Challenge

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You may have gathered elsewhere on this blog that I am a complete Agatha Christie obsessive and have been for decades. So when I saw on the Agatha Christie website that the third Read Christie challenge was to take place this year, I jumped at the chance to get involved.

The Read Christie 2021 challenge involves choosing and reading a Christie story each month, based on a list of predetermined criteria chosen by the lovely folks over on the Agatha Christie website. For example, the January challenge is to read a Christie story which is set in a grand house.

There are certainly some options there, as one of the frequent traits of Golden Age mysteries was the setting of the country house. This narrowed both setting and cast of characters for the detective who was solving the puzzle. Had it been December, my immediate choice would have been Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. To be fair, I still could, as could you! But more on my personal choice shortly. As you can see, I’ve got plenty of books to choose from!

My immediate thoughts for this challenge are Christie’s very first published novel, The Mysterious Affair at Style, and Styles house also features once more in Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case. I also think Crooked House and Peril at End House are excellent options. You could certainly also include The Secret of Chimneys in this, as well as maybe the other Chimneys novel, The Seven Dials Mystery, and possibly The Sittaford Mystery, too.

If you want to get involved, you can find out absolutely everything you need to know about the Read Christie 2021 challenge at www.agathachristie.com. There you will find a complete list of monthly challenges, including a suggested list of books relating to each topic and the Agatha Christie team’s monthly choices, too. There’s also a hashtag to use on Instagram and Twitter, if you’re posting about your reads: #ReadChristie2021.

If you do join in, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll be blogging about my monthly choice (without spoilers) here, towards the end of each month, and announcing what my following month’s read will be.

My January read, which has to be set in a grand house, is Crooked House.

Happy reading (Christie or otherwise)!

Read Christie 2021: my February book choice – Sad Cypress

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The Read Christie 2021 challenge for February was to read a book featuring love. I knew immediately which one I was going to read. Sad Cypress is a novel I read when I was in my early teens and it has truly stuck with me for decades. I can vividly remember where I was, the weather, the seat I was on (in case you’re wondering, it was a sun bed in the back garden), and exactly how I felt when I devoured this book the first time. It, I believe, was completely responsible for my lifelong wish to write books containing poisons (which I did manage to achieve in Baby up the Chimney). Anyway, back to Sad Cypress.

Plot

Elinor Carlisle stands in the dock, accused of murdering Mary Gerrard. Elinor was in line to inherit the estate of her aunt, Mrs Welman, but after an anonymous letter, it seems that Mary Gerrard might have been getting a bit too close to Mrs Welman for some people’s liking. To make matters worse, Elinor’s boyfriend’s sudden love for Mary causes the engagement to be broken off. Meanwhile, Mary, encouraged by the local nurse, nurse Hopkins, has made a will, and now it seems she has something to leave to its recipient. Elinor, too, has made a will, leaving everything she inherits to Roddy, the ex boyfriend.

While clearing out the house and the lodge, Elinor makes sandwiches, and invites Mary and nurse Hopkins who has taken a shine to Mary and is helping out, to have lunch with her. An hour later, Mary is dead.

So, did Elinor poison Mary Gerrard with Morphine in the sandwiches, like the police think she did? Or has someone got it in for Elinor and is framing her for the murder? The local doctor is determined to get Elinor off at all costs, and enlists the help of Hercule Poirot to do so. And Poirot searches for the truth, even if that means he discovers that Elinor is guilty of murder after all.

Okay, so there’s much more to the plot than that, but I really don’t want to give you any spoilers. Onto the book itself…

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