Book Beginnings and Friday 56 -- Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by A Few More Pages. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence, or two, of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

"But if he thought the woman was being murdered --- " 

"My dear Charles," said the young man with the monocle, "it doesn't do for people, especially doctors, to go about thinking things.  They may get in frightful trouble about 'thinking' things.  

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice. Check out the rules and join in the fun.

Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
Turn to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog. Post a link along with your post back to this blog.
"Or where a murderer might go to play hide and let the police seek," said Wimsey.  

"Well, well.  Have it your own way," said Sir Andrew, smiling. 

I think what I'm realizing about Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries is that I don't read them for the mystery as much as the humor -- and that was certainly the case with Unnatural Death.  It was a fun one, dry wit-wise.  Beyond that, lots of Brit mystery staples -- possibly premature death that benefits the heir, several barristers, relatives returning from Canada, etc.  Fun.  I'll keep reading Sayers. (My first experience of her writing came in college, when I read a collection of her essays.)

Teaser Tuesdays -- The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading. To participate, all you have to do is the following:

• Grab your current/upcoming read
• Open to a random page
• Share 2-3 "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers!  

Cover of Agatha Christie

She was so swelling with grievance that she condescended to pour it out to us:  "It wasn't me who thought of asking her! She rang up herself, said she'd something on her mind and could she come here, it being her day off."

~page 90, The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie

This is a re-read for me, for the Vintage Mystery Challenge.  It definitely feels like an old friend.  I'm not yet to the point where Miss Marple shows up and I'm looking forward to that.

Theme Thursday -- Beauty -- Why Shoot a Butler? by Georgette Heyer

Hosted by Reading Between the Pages

Rules:

*A theme will be posted each week on Thursday.

*Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you're reading that features the theme

*Post it and don't forget to mention the author and title of the book

*Event is open for the whole week

*Link back to Reading Between the Pages

 

 "The ball," she announced, "is on Wednesday."  Frank groaned. "Did you bring a fancy dress?" Felicity said anxiously.

"I did."

"What is it?" demanded Felicity, agog with female interest.

"Mephistopheles.  Suits my style of beauty."

She was doubtful.  "I don't really mind about that," she informed him.  "You see, I'm going as a Powder Puff, and you won't suit my style at all.."

"God forbid.  A Powder Puff!  Look here, what is this ball about, and why, and where?" (page 20)


This was the first time I'd read anything by Georgette Heyer and I really enjoyed it.  I'm pretty sure I'll be picking her books up again.    From the back cover:
On a dark night, along a lonely country road, barrister Frank Amberley stops to help a young lady in distress and discovers a sports car with a corpse behind the wheel.  The girl protests her innocence, and Amberley believes her -- at least until he gets drawn into the mystery and the clues incriminating Shirley Brown begin to add up . . . 

In an English country-house murder mystery with a twist, it's the butler who's the victim, every clue complicates the puzzle, and the bumbling police are well-meaning but completely baffled.  Fortunately, in ferreting out a desperate killer, amateur sleuth Amberley is as brilliant as he is arrogant, but this time he's not sure he wants to know the truth . . .   

I really appreciate Heyer's style and humor and liked the way she creates her characters.
 

13 at Dinner by Agatha Christie

Another one for the Vintage Mystery Challenge.  From the back cover:
It was absolutely indecent!  It was also highly irregular, completely illegal, and dangerous.  What the beautiful actresss had actually suggested to Hercule Poirot was that he plan the perfect way to get rid of her husband. 

Of course the idea of Poirot being involved in such a scheme was absurd -- that is, until the husband turned up dead, and the actress turned up with the most perfect alibi ever invented....

Two fun bits, full of typical Christie humor:

For the first half of the meal he sat in gloomy silence.  Toward the latter half he unbosomed himself to me, apparently under the impression that I was one of his oldest friends. (p.21)

I'd never heard the word "unbosomed" in this context before and it amused me.

"Are we proposing to call at Buckingham Palace?"  I inquired  sarcastically. 

"No.  But I saw in the newspaper this morning that the Duke of Merton had returned to Merton House.  I understand he is a premier member of the English aristocracy.  I wish to do him all honor."

There is nothing of the Socialist about Poirot. (p.138)

Good old Hastings -- the master of understatement. :)

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

My daughter and I just finished reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles together.

From the back cover:

When an aging heiress is found fatally poisoned, the amazing Hercule Poirot, a brilliant Belgian criminal investigator, is brought out of retirement to solve the case.


In this classic tale of murder, jealousy and greed, Agatha Christie introduced the famed sleuth, who is immediately confronted by mysteries within a mystery: a door bolted from the inside of the victim's room; the disappearance of a coffee cup believed to have held the poison; the charred remains of a will, a strange fragment of fabric and a curious rug stain found near the body.  


The Mysterious Affair at Styles falls firmly in the middle ground between my least and most favorite Agatha Christies -- I neither love nor hate it -- though I'm not sure that there is an Agatha Christie that I do hate, but certainly some that I feel less enamored of.  It's really fun and interested to read these with my daughter -- whenever I start to think that she isn't really following along, she proves me wrong with an astute comment or two.  :)

Theme Thursdays -- Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie

Theme Thursdays is a brand-new meme hosted by Kavyen over at Reading Between Pages.  She says:


Theme Thursdays is a fun weekly event that will be open from one Thursday to the next. Anyone can participate in it. The rules are simple:

• A theme will be posted each week (on Thursdays)
• Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you are reading
• Mention the author and the title of the book along with your post
• It is important that the theme is conveyed in the sentence (you don’t necessarily need to have the word)
  Ex: If the theme is KISS; your sentence can have “They kissed so gently” or “Their lips touched each other” or “The smooch was so passionate”

This week’s theme is – LOVE

 (Warning--slight spoilers.)

So she went off to India and on the way she met Richard Erskine and fell in love with him.  There again, she behaved not like a sex-crazy girl, but like a decent and honourable girl. She didn't urge him to leave his wife.  She urged him not to do so.  But when she saw Walter Fane, she knew that she couldn't marry him, and because she didn't know what else to do, she wired her brother for money to go home.

p.286, Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie

This is the first Miss Marple I've re-read in a while and it wasn't as enjoyable as I was expecting. I used to really like the Marple books, so I'm interested to see if it is just the specific storyline of Sleeping Murder or if I'm just off Marple entirely for now.

Friday 56 and Book Beginnings -- Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie & The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

Hosted by Katy.

How to participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you're reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence.

"It was dusk when he came to the ferry. 

He could have been there much earlier."

~from Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie

This beginning definitely caught my attention -- I wanted to know what he was putting off and why. The speaker is Dr. Arthur Calgary, just returned from two years in Antarctica.  An old newspaper article brought the realization that his amnesia directly before leaving for his expedition has put an innocent man in jail.  In his desire to "make things" right, he is traveling on the ferry to share the news that he assumes (incorrectly) will be a relief to the convicted man's family.  An interesting premise a bit out of the norm for Christie.  Enjoyable.






Hosted by Freda.
Rules:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Link it here.

Anyone familiar with Yiddish knows a better example, the ultimate riposte to someone reasoning from improbable premises:  Az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde, "If my grandmother had balls , she'd be my grandfather."

~The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

Funerals Are Fatal by Agatha Christie

Not one of my favorites.  From the back cover:

Batty old Aunt Cora didn't watch her tongue at a family funeral.  The next day, another corpse was found.  Was it coincidence that it happened to be Cora?

I'm not sure why, but this book just doesn't appeal to me the way many of Christie's do.  It has some of the same elements -- wills, family intrigue, loyal servants, etc.  Maybe that's part of the problem -- those elements are what draw me toward her books in the first place.  I didn't feel sympathetic to any of the characters and what should've been a big surprise didn't feel like one -- though I'm willing to blame that on the fact that I think this was a re-read.  ;)

Crooked House by Agatha Christie

Crooked House is another Agatha Christie.  I think this is only the second time I've read this omnibus of three novels (The Seven Dials Mystery,Crooked House, and Ordeal by Innocence) so this story isn't as familiar to me as some of Christie's are. 

Eighty-five year old Aristide Leonides dies after someone in his household switches Leonides' insulin for the eserine in his eyedrops.  We meet the Leonides family through the eyes of Charles Hayward.  Hayward is in love with Leonides' granddaughter, Sophia, who wants to be sure of the murderer's identity before agreeing to marry Charles.

Sophia and Charles' relationship didn't interest me -- it was never clear to me what the attraction between them was based on or what held them together during a time of great turmoil.  But, as always, Christie delivers a plot with plenty of twists and turns and manages to (almost) make you feel sorry for the independently wealthy.  :)

Friday 56 and Book Beginnings -- The Seven Dials Mystery

Hosted by Katy.
How to participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you're reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence.

 "That amiable youth, Jimmy Thesiger, came racing down the big staircase at Chimneys two steps at a time.  So precipitate was his descent that he collided with Tredwell, the stately butler, just as the latter was crossing the hall bearing a fresh supply of hot coffee."


A great intro -- like many of Christie's ploys, you don't realize how great til much later on.



Hosted by Freda.
Rules:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Link it here.

"Old diseased colonels creeping about in the sun, and active, wizened spinsters running libraries and churches."

Another re-read for me.  Something about this plot kept reminding me of a Nancy Drew mystery -- secret society, peeking through cabinet doors, etc.  Not quite motivated enough to see if I'm right, though.  :)

Teaser Tuesdays -- Easy to Kill by Agatha Christie

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"It's very easy to kill, so long as no one suspects you.  And you see, the person in question is just the last person anyone would suspect."

~p. 7-8, Easy to Kill by Agatha Christie

The speaker here is Miss Fullerton, speaking to Luke Fitzwilliam, her fellow passenger on a train to London, near the opening of this book.  Fitzwilliam is returning from a long stint as a police officer in Asia and is mildly amused by Miss Fullerton's story of the murders she "knows" are taking place in her small village of Wychwood under Ashe.  His amusement fades, however, when he reads, a few days later,  Miss Fullerton's newspaper obituary.  His concern increases when he learns that the very person she was worried about on the train has died as well.  He arranges to go to Wychwood under Ashe to reassure himself that there is nothing to Miss Fullerton's story.  Unfortunately, of course, there is.

I found a study hall/library pass from 1992 in this book.  :) It's interesting to think about reading it at two such very different times in my life.

A Holiday for Murder by Agatha Christie

Synopsis from FantasticFiction:

It is Christmas Eve. The Lee family reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture, followed by a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed. But when Hercule Poirot, who is staying in the village with a friend for Christmas, offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man.

One of the best parts of this book, for me, is the diverse set of characters -- personality-wise, that is -- ethnicity & socioeconomic-wise, Christie tends to stick to her standard upper class British cast with a few hired help and questionable non-British thrown in for good measure, but that's a whole 'nother post (here, here, and here, for example).  I'll eventually be picking up some other authors from the same time period (before 1960) and I'll be interested to see what classism, sexism, and racism appears there as compared to Christie's books.

The Patriotic Murders by Agatha Christie

Synopsis from FictionDB:
It was shortly after his 12:30 appointment that Dr. Morley was found with a bullet through his right temple. The gun was on the floor beside him. The authorities were satisfied that the amiable old dentist had shot himself. Hercule Poirot was not. But who could have murdered him? One of Dr. Morley's glamorous patients? His hard-drinking partner? His secretary's disgruntled boyfriend? All Poirot has is a hunch, too many clues and a killer who will not be satisfied with only one victim.

I've been enjoying re-reading my Agatha Christie collection in honor of the 2011Vintage Mystery Challenge.  I'm intrigued by what I do and don't remember of the plot, the characters, and the resolution in these books.  I find that, while there are certain elements I've retained through the years (I've been reading Christie for a good 20 years or so) there are also certain points that elude me right up to the end.  I like that.

Death in the Air by Agatha Christie

I'm happy to report, after re-reading Death in the Air, that the shine has not worn off Agatha Christie's writing for me after all and that indeed, it was simply that The A.B.C. Murders is simply not my favorite.

Death in the Air reminded me that one of the things I appreciate about Agatha Christie is the dry humor that permeates her writing.  Here's Inspector Japp, speaking of one of the passengers -- an author:

". . . 'I don't think it's healthy for a man to be always brooding over crime and detective stories.  Reading up all sorts of cases.  It puts ideas into his head.'

'It is certainly necessary for a writer to have ideas in his head,' agreed Poirot." (page 63)

I love it.

This is a locked room mystery with a twist -- it takes place on a flight from France to England.  At the rear of the plane, one of the stewards attempts to wake one of the passengers, a Madame Giselle, in preparation for landing.  Upon realizing she is dead, there is an uproar in the plane.  Luckily, Hercule Poirot is on the plane so the day, as always, is saved.

If you want to try Agatha Christie for the first time, you could do worse than to pick up Death in the Air.

The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie

I've been wanting to re-read some Agatha Christie and the Vintage Mystery Challenge  seemed like a a great prompt to do so. 

The A.B.C. Murders is a classic Christie, starring Hercule Poirot. Hastings (who plays Watson to Poirot's Holmes) is back from South America and wishing, nostalgically, for another murder to solve with Poirot.  When Poirot receives an anonymous letter telling him to "look out for Andover on the 21st of the month," the hunt is on. 


The A.B.C. Murders is not my favorite, I realized during this re-read.  If you haven't read Christie before, I'm not sure I'd recommend this one. (Unless I've soured on her all together in the past few years . . . we'll see what happens with the next book, I guess!)  But even though I remembered some of the basic plot, I was still left unraveling some of the smaller details, which seems in the book's favor.

Have others read this one?

Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge 2011

I've been thinking that I'd like to re-read my Agatha Christie collection and I'd also like to read more Dorothy L. Sayers (I think I've really only read some of her essays, never her novels.)  So I thought this challenge, reading mysteries written before 1960, would fit well with those desires.  The challenge is hosted by Bev over at My Reader's Block.

I'm aiming for the  Take 'Em to Trial level -- 16+ books.