A Little Bit of Toronto Visits Liverpool. . .

Some days it doesn't take much for me to feel a pang of homesickness. The smell of doughnuts.  Hearing a Michael Buble or Leonard Cohen song on the radio. The latest baseball scores running along the bottom of the SkySports channel. And then a few weeks ago, I was passing the Waterstones in Liverpool One and saw this:

Of course I had to go. Though Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks books are set in Yorkshire, he's lived for years in Toronto. I used to work for his Canadian publisher and have met him several times. I was once lucky enough to drive him to a library conference from Edmonton to Jasper (he was a delightful passenger). He's now moved to Richmond and promises that a lot more day to day English realisms will creep into his novels. (I think he's done a fine job so far as it is).  I've now just finished his latest book, Children of the Revolution and it was a treat to read.

Banks is called on to investigate the murder of Gavin Miller, a disgraced university lecturer, now fallen on bad times and although the same age as Banks, looking much older. He's strangely drawn to the victim (they liked the same 60s and early 70s music, and had a similar taste in films) and Banks is insistent that the past has something to do with the motive. But which past?  Four years ago when Miller was dismissed from his job for sexual misconduct with two students?  Or forty years ago when Miller was himself a student at the University of Essex at the same time as Ronnie Bellamy (now Lady Veronica Chalmers, living in the same Yorkshire town) who was active in the student Marxist movement during the miner's strike and is now behaving rather strangely about a telephone call she received from Miller just a week before his death?  In the present, Banks also has to deal with petty jealousies and resentments among his colleagues, and a warning from high up to stay away from the Chalmers family, who have important political connections. There was an interesting mix of characters in this mystery and a good demonstration of how meticulous and tedious detection can be the key to solving a case.

I'm also grateful that Robinson added Liverpool to his tour; despite this being a very literary city, so many of the big authors skip it and go to Manchester instead. It was nice to say hello (he remembered me) and hear him talk about both the book and the television series (which I haven't yet seen). And despite the distance (geographical and no doubt in time, reflective) between him and his former city, no, he doesn't have any plans to set a future novel in Toronto.

Reading Adventures on the Train. . .

While travelling around the U.K. on my various day trips, I've never been without a book in my bag to while away the less picturesque parts and the endless platform waiting.   I think train reading should always be fun, heavily plot-driven and if it also has its fair share of rail content, then all the better for this train-lit connoisseur.

I picked up a copy of Maurice Dekobra's The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars, translated by Neal Wainwright at Daunts Books, one of my favourite bookstores in London.  It's part of Melville House's terrific Neversink Library - another series of rediscovered classics and translated literature that I'm gradually making my way through (I've already reviewed The Train and The President by Georges Simenon and After Midnight by Irmgard Keun - all fantastic reads).  This novel, originally published in 1927, bills itself as one of "the biggest bestsellers of all time, and one of the first and most influential spy novels of the twentieth century".  I enjoyed this  book very much but not necessarily for the blurb description which drew me to it in the first place.  A "delightful romp" it certainly is, but not so much about spying as it is about, well, quite simply sex, though not at all of a gratuitous or pornographic nature. The plot is a bit flimsy;  our hero, Prince Gerard Séliman, secretary to the beautiful and sexy Lady Diana Wynham, the "madonna" of the title, sets off to Russia to ensure the financial validity of some oil wells left to Diana by her late husband and her last chance to escape financial ruin.  In order to get the Russian communist government to allow foreign investment, Diana has had to seduce Varichkine, the Soviet representative in Berlin, who wants her to become his wife in return for his influence.  Looming large is the indomitable Irina Mouravieff, high up in the Soviet command and Varichkine's mistress who is out for revenge (she would be perfect as a Bond villian) who is following Gerard's every move with potentially deadly results.  What dominates this novel though, are the strong women surrounding Gerard (including Klara, a German spy, and his estranged wife Griselda who suspects him of a dalliance with her stepdaughter), who matter-of-factly use their sexual attraction very strategically to the bemusement and barely concealed delight of Gerard.  The atmosphere including risque German nightclubs and even a Russian prison, is also conducive to sexual politics where the naked body (or humiliation of it) becomes a tool for both political and social power. Even Lady Diana shocks society by doing a striptease, ostensibly for charity, but with her own ulterior motives. It all provides quite the frisson to the backdrop of what is basically an adventure story with some dazzling (and very witty) dialogue and some very unusual and liberating depictions of the "New Woman" of the 1920s.  My one disappointment - there wasn't as much action on the trains as the title might have suggested, but I still enjoyed the journey.

It still shocks me that despite the fact that many of Michael Innes' books are still in print (published by the admirable House of Stratus), you'd be hard pressed to find any titles in a bookstore - independent or chain - or more than one or two in a library, and trust me, I've been looking.  I think he's one of Britain's best mystery writers and his books never fail to entertain with their wit and cynicism.  Appleby and the Ospreys is one of his later works, written in 1986, but with its small village setting embedded with inevitable class consciousness, the reader could be excused for thinking they've stumbled on a classic crime novel from the 1930s or 40s.  Sir John Appleby has officially retired but still likes to "run into mysteries accidentally on purpose." And like most series sleuths, people readily comply by ending up dead in his vicinity.  In this case, the victim is Lord Osprey, owner of a valuable collection of coins, whose dead body is found shortly after the Applebys have visited his mansion.  This is a fun take (spoof would be too undignified), on the typical English country house murder with all of the usual elements at play: a body found in the library, a group of house guests, many with a suitable motive, who are uncannily calm about events, red herrings and of course, the all-knowing and all-seeing butler.  I just never get tired of reading Innes and readily scour used bookstores for old Penguin editions of his books.

Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret novels are another guilty pleasure, but I also enjoy his psychological romans dur and have several taunting me on my NYRB Classics bookshelf. Sadly, despite its tantalising title, I found Act of Passion, translated by Louise Varèse rather dispiriting. The novel is told in the form of a letter written by convicted killer Charles Alavoine to his examining magistrate.  It begins: "I should like one man, just one, to understand me. And I would like that man to be you."  What follows is the story of his life and the events leading up to his crime.  Alavoine is similar to many of Simenon's characters - a loner, bored with his bourgeois respectable life and an unfulfilling marriage, and seeking to escape his own inadequacies with darker adventures mostly of a sexual nature.  But unlike say, Marcel in the aforementioned The Train, whose bid for personal freedom has far greater moral, historical and dangerous implications, Alavoine's indifferent egotism quickly gets annoying and the "love" that motivates his crime never entirely convinces. I have no problems with a thoroughly unlikeable protagonist but this one quickly bored me. It won't stop me though from eventually making my way through all the NYRB Classic Simenons; he's such a good writer that I can easily excuse a lesser offering.

The Angst-Ridden Executive. . .

It's always a delight discovering a new mystery series and this one is a lot of fun. It's part of Melville House's International Crime Series and though The Angst-Ridden Executive by Manuel Vazquez Montalban, translated by Ed Emery, is the third in the series (there are more titles coming out this year),  there's no problem with jumping right in (although I 'd like to read the fourth one next  - I think it's Southern Seas - to possibly understand the fallout from the ending of this one).  Our private detective is Pepe Carvalho, formally imprisoned under the Franco regime, a man who once worked for the CIA and has now set up his own business.  He loves women, good food (obsessively and gluttonously), talking politics and (strangely) burning the odd book in his fireplace.  To relax he likes to cook, "something slightly painstaking and packed with stimulation and small difficulties", or go to the movies, with a particular taste for classic Hollywood noir. It all seems to help him in his job:

Yet more role models! Which should he choose?  Whom should he copy? Bogart playing Chandler? Alan Ladd doing Hammett? Paul Newman as Harper? Gene Hackman? In the privacy of his car as it crept up the slopes of Tibidabo, Carvalho practiced the mannerisms of each of them. Bogart's dewy-eyed look and the contemptuous curl of the lip.  Alan Ladd, and the way he walked as tall as possible to cover up for how short he was. Then there was Newman, with his self-awareness of being so very good-looking. And Hackman, with the look of a man who's been jilted by his wife, weighs two hundred pounds, and is tired of life. 

The above excerpt gives a small sense of Montalban's writing style which I'd characterize as sophisticated wisecracking. Pepe is cynical, world weary and impatient. He doesn't suffer fools or corruption gladly, but there is a generous heart located somewhere amidst the cholesterol.  I haven't written much about the plot (a wealthy executive is found murdered with a pair of knickers in his pocket and Pepe doesn't buy the official version that he was killed by a pimp), simply because this isn't really a whodunit in the traditional sense. There's no clever plotting and accumulation of clues; this is certainly not a country house cozy.  Suspicion for the murder falls on the group of friends closest to the murdered executive, who have remained in touch but followed widely different paths in the wake of Franco's death, and it is in this vivid and vibrant portrait of a still uncertain Spanish society trying to come to grips with its political past, that the book most intrigued me.  And the food descriptions won't disappoint.   Despite its occasional violence and dated misogyny (the book was originally published in 1977), I did chuckle quite a bit throughout and I'd definitely read another in this series.

An Elementary Country House Murder. . .

It may be due to all the Terence Rattigan that I've been exposed to recently, but this weekend I just wanted to continue spending more time with the Brits.  So I picked up Gladys Mitchell's Watson's Choice, a Mrs. Bradley mystery originally published in 1955 and recently brought back into print by Vintage U.K.  It's in the cozy mode of British crime writing centered around a group of eccentric but coolly detached suspects gathered in a large country house. Sir Bohun Chantrey is a huge Sherlock Holmes enthusiast and so throws a costume party with guests dressed as characters from the cases, complete with party games that call upon their knowledge of Conan Doyle's work. Then all of a sudden the "Hound of the Baskervilles" shows up, and even though the murder - of Linda Campbell, the vampish governess recently engaged to Chantrey - takes place several weeks after the party, this large dog proves to be one of the clues to catching the culprit. 

This is the second of Mitchell's extensive list of Mrs. Bradley mysteries that I've read and while I find her plots rather thin, she makes up for it with a sly humour occasioned by Bradley's forthright psychological insights and the banter between herself and Laura her secretary.  I probably would have enjoyed it more if I was acquainted with a greater number of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but I didn't find it too much of a distraction. And when you get to the end, don't forget to reflect on the book's title.

Icelandic Mysteries. . .

I started Arnaldur Indridason's latest, Outrage, translated by Anna Yates, on the train home from Ottawa. He's one of my favourite Scandinavian crime writers and I like his tightly plotted police proceedures.  I thought this would be another Inspector Erlendur mystery, but it follows on from the last book,  Hypothermia; at the end of that case, Erlendur took some time off and went away to the Eastern fjords, where his younger brother went missing in a snowstorm decades ago. This event has always haunted him, especially as the body was never found.

So the latest murder case in Reykjavik falls to his colleague Elinborg to solve. A man has been found with his throat slit and the date-rape drug Rohypnol in his pockets.  A subsequent autopsy reveals that the murdered man's body was also full of the drug.  Elinborg has to use old fashioned detective work to discover potential witnesses and to track down possible victims of the man, all the while trying to balance her duties as wife (and main family cook) and mother of three. Which makes a refreshing change from the usual moody, male detective who rarely has mundane parental chores to occupy his mind.  Elinborg worries about everything from her son's obsession with his blog, to guilt over not being at home to help her daughter's knitting assignment (and isn't it great that Icelandic kids have to knit as part of their schooling?).  And she hates having to answer her work cell phone when she's at home.  But she's tough and diligent at her job, and not above firmly reprimanding a colleague when he screws up. The case veers into many lines of investigation including the unsolved murder of a young girl several years ago. Elinborg's patience, cleverness and expertise with Indian spices - she's also a published cookbook author - solve most of the mysteries.

But we're left hanging as to the whereabouts of Erlendur.  Elinborg gets a call informing her that his car has been abandoned and there's been no sight of him. Will we find out what happened in the next book, or will he become a missing persons case himself (obsessed as he is by this type of mystery)?  Indridason may be turning his focus to Elinborg which would be just fine by me as I really liked her as a character.  I do worry about Erlendur though and hope he's safe.

P.D. James Takes On Jane Austen. . .

Here's some really exciting news for the fall season, just announced. Any new P.D. James mystery is a cause for celebration but this new crime novel is also set in the world of Pride and Prejudice, six years after Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage.  The murder victim?  None other than Wickham. Could this get more delicious?  Death Comes to Pemberley will be out in Canada at the end of November.
Can't wait to read this!

My New Literary Crush: Michael Innes. . .

Michael Innes, where have you been all my life?

Well actually you've been lurking in the dark corners of my bookcases - part of a neglected group that was hidden behind another layer on my doublestacked shelves. Fortunately, (or desperately), I've had to cull my overflowing shelves lately and so discovered a few of his novels.  I can't remember when or where I bought them, but I must have read a glowing review somewhere.  And I'm delighted to have found such a treasure among my many unread books.

I love mysteries with a sense of humour and if it's of the academic or bibliophilic type, even better.  Which is why fiction written by authors who were also English professors (as John Innes Mackintosh Stewart, aka Michael Innes, was) are often so deliciously witty.  The New Sonia Wayward had me at the first mention of our protagonist's wonderfully silly and yet appropiate name - Colonel Ffolliot Petticate.  Folly and pettiness are certainly key themes that permeate this comedy of suspense.

In the opening paragraph, Sonia Wayward - Petticate's wife - has just died of natural causes while the couple was sailing in the English Channel. Something of their married life can be gleaned by what Petticate does next. After a careful consideration of how many of the suddenly extra pork chops now available for dinner he should eat, he takes his wife's clothes off, puts on her bathing suit and calmly tips her body overboard. When Petticate returns home to the small English village of Snigg's Green, he lies to his neighbours, telling them his wife is just on an extended trip and can't be contacted.  Sonia was a successful writer of romances and the main breadwinner.  She left an unfinished manuscript which Petticate, worried his income and way of life are about to disappear, tries to finish.  He finds he quite enjoys the writing and believes in his talent. But his nerves are being stretched to the limit;  he is under constant pressure from the police, Sonia's editor, and a famous sculptor to produce his wife, not to mention the unsettling presence of his two sinister servants who simply will not leave the house, even after being fired.

There are certainly shades of The Talented Mr. Ripley (published five years earlier), in The New Sonia Wayward.  Petticate shares Tom Ripley's growing ego, his paranoia, and even at times his touching vulnerability.  But Innes has a far more comic touch and the predicaments that Petticate finds himself in as a result of his lies and deceptions are very funny indeed, especially the last and most fitting one.

I'm hooked.  I have two other Innes books to read - another standalone novel, From London Far, and Hamlet, Revenge!, one of his Inspector Appleby mysteries.  If they prove to be as equally enjoyable, then this is going to be a very long affair.  Innes was quite prolific and the House of Stratus editions are very handsome indeed.

The Postmodern Mystery. . .

Now here's a fantastic reading list to work your way through. Ted Gioia has written an essay entitled "The Eight Memes of the Postmodern Mystery", citing such characteristics as "The Author Appears As a Character . . . Or Even a Suspect", "An Obsession With Texts", and "The Wounded Investigator". He warns that, "fans of conventional whodunits may do well to steer clear of these books, which will thwart their expectations, mess with their minds, and possibly undermine their faith in the triumph of law and order. Put simply, these books are not for the faint of heart."

Absolutely my type of reading!

You can read his essay here. And he's also included a list of Fifty Essential Works here. I've read only seven of the titles but all were completely original and memorable. And now I've quite a few more to add to the reading pile. Thanks to Literary Saloon for the link.

A Good Take on Tey. . .

I seem to be on a bit of a mystery reading kick. Just finished Nicola Upson's An Expert in Murder which features Josephine Tey as the protagonist. I've only read one of Tey's mysteries - the wonderfully inventive The Daughter of Time - and I don't know why I've never explored more of her work as I certainly love this "golden age" of crime writing.

I enjoyed Upson's debut mystery very much, set as it is in the world of theater during the run of Tey's very successful play Richard of Bordeaux in 1934 (something else to look up and read). Tey meets a young girl and fan on the train down to London. The girl is subsequently murdered at King's Cross, just minutes after saying goodbye and the connections to the play and Tey are only heightened and complicated when a second murder occurs in the theatre itself. There's a charming, solid detective named Archie Penrose who loves Tey but is reluctant to act on it as he still feels guilt over the death of Tey's lover Jack - his best friend - during the war. The reverberations, grief and secrets of the First World War are prevalent everywhere in this intricate and entertaining mystery; all of the characters have absorbed its sadness in one way or another. It's a good companion series to the Maisie Dobbs novels of Jacqueline Winspear. Apart from an unconvincing motive on the part of one accomplice character, I thought this was a very accomplished first book and look forward to reading the next in the series - Angel With Two Faces - particularly as it's also set in the theatre world. This time it's the Minack Theatre in Cornwall, a place I'm hoping to visit during the summer. And I must read more of Tey's detective novels as well.

Sinister Simenon. . .

Georges Simenon was such a prolific writer that I've been a bit wary of reading him - could someone who regularly cranked out three to twelve books a year, really be that good?

Well, let's just say that this may be the start of a lifelong addiction.

I dove in with an Inspector Maigret mystery from 1932. Maigret and the Tavern by the Seine, translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury, was a completely enjoyable read. It's a hot summer, Madame Maigret keeps imploring her husband to join her in the country and he keeps finding excuses to miss his train. On the trail of a six year old murder, he warily starts participating in the weekend partying of a group of dissipated and dissatisfied friends. The case takes a new twist when one of them is found shot and the one discovered holding the gun makes a run for it. The plotting was solid, although I did guess the murderer, though not the motive. Nevertheless, I loved Maigret's unrushed gloominess and self-righteous cynicism:

The case didn't taste nice. A musty taste of commonplace existence, with a remote undercurrent of something a bit crooked.

Simenon's writing has often been compared to that of Patricia Highsmith or Jim Thompson - both writers that I admire - and they certainly share an ontological fascination with doubles, with characters fantasizing about becoming somebody else, and with exploring how jealousy, envy and even (perhaps especially) boredom, can break down the social and psychological barriers between ordinary and evil. It's there in Maigret and it definitely seems to be a major theme of his romans durs. I followed up the mystery with the much darker The Man Who Watched Trains Go By, translated by Marc Romano and D. Thin, and first published in 1938. This is the story of Kees Popinga, a respectable Dutch manager who learns that his boss plans to fake his suicide and escape to a new life because he's driven the company into bankruptcy. After the initial shock, Popinga decides to emulate him and also run away from his family and the inevitable stresses that losing his job and savings will entail. But first, he'll pay a visit to his boss's former mistress. Who laughs at him and pays the price with her life. The novel then moves to the streets, cafes and bars of Paris where the fugitive Popinga, while trying to avoid the police, and extricate himself from a gang of car thieves, becomes incensed with the way the newspapers are portraying him. This isn't so much a crime novel as a major identity crisis - the story of a man who relishes the freedom to become someone completely different, but who plummets into a delusional, obsessive fury when he realizes that society not only doesn't comprehend and admire who he really is - they don't even care:

He'd made only one mistake: right from the start, he should have considered the whole world his enemy. Now they didn't take him seriously. They weren't scared. It made perfect sense for them to treat him like a clown.

Luc Sante sums the novel up perfectly in his introduction to this NYRB Classics edition:

You the reader assume the fears and tribulatoins of a character you cannot possibly like. You live and die (so to speak), sweat and cringe with him. You carry a knot in your chest as he drags himself around ever bleaker and more remote corners of Paris. You become almost physically uncomfortable on his behalf, even as you are repulsed by him. And then, after you have closed the book and put it back on the shelf, you realize that all along you have been reading a comedy.

More please!

Three mysteries in translation. . .

It's been one of those weeks when my brain has been feeding on nothing but crime novels. So I managed to fully complete one of the categories in my Lost in Translation reading challenge, by devouring three mysteries in translation. And I can highly recommend them all.

Bernhard Schlink's bestselling book The Reader has been in the news a lot lately given the movie's Best Picture Oscar nomination and all the accolades and acting awards coming Kate Winslet's way. I also enjoyed Schlink's recent novel Homecoming which covers some of the same themes of second generation Germans trying to grapple with their Nazi past. Self's Punishment by Schlink and Walter Popp, translated by Rebecca Morrison, is the first in a series of crime novels featuring Gerhard Self, a man in his late sixties who also has to deal with a personal shameful episode stemming from the war. It is many years later, and he is hired to investigate a possible security breach at a local factory run by an old friend. Just when he thinks he has found the man responsible, a murder ensues, and the case becomes far more complicated. Of course I won't give it away, but the ending was shocking and unconventional for a mystery novel. I very much liked the character of Self - he's self-aware and self-effacing - and I look forward to reading more of his adventures.

I've been a big fan of Fred Vargas for a few years and love her Commissaire Adamsberg mysteries. My favourite so far has been Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand, mainly because it was partially set in Canada and featured a terrifically improbable but no less brilliant and original take on how to foil the police and exit a country via a major international airport without detection. I've just finished her latest to appear in English - The Chalk Circle Man, translated by Siân Reynolds - even though it actually is the first Adamsberg book she wrote (don't you just love how translation decisions are made?) This doesn't really pose a problem as all her books read perfectly as stand-alones and can easily be read out of order. It's nice to go the beginning however - Adamsberg has just arrived in Paris and his new colleagues are eyeing his methods rather suspiciously. Still, he knows that there's something sinister behind a series of blue chalk circles that show up on Paris sidewalks during the night. Each has the same engimatic quotation written around its edge and contains a seemingly innocuous object in the center. Until one night a murdered body is found in one of these circles. And then another. Vargas excels at interesting, quirky characters - suspects and members of the police force alike - and her plotting is second to none. She's probably my current favourite among contemporary mystery writers. I loved this book!

I also enjoy Nordic crime novels and my newest fave is Iceland's Arnaldur Indridason. His latest is Arctic Chill, translated by Bernard Scudder and Victoria Cribb. His detective Erlendur, must surely be the gloomiest of all the fictional sleuths working the bookshelves, and probably the only Icelander who has ever preferred the winter to the summer (Iceland only gets about two or three hours of daylight during the winter). He has problems with his estranged grown-up children, a complicated love life, and an unhealthy obsession with missing persons reports, stemming from a childhood trauma when his younger brother disappeared during a blizzard and was never seen again. This latest mystery touches on some of the current racial problems facing many Scandinavian countries as immigrant workers try to integrate into society despite language and cultural barriers. A young Thai boy is found murdered near his apartment building and in searching for his killer, Erlendur comes up against these racial tensions. It's an apt title - the identity of the killer truly is chilling. This is the fourth Erlendur mystery that I've read and I think it's the best one so far. I look forward to seeing if (and how) Indridason deals with Iceland's current bankruptcy in future novels.

Time for a break from mysteries now - I feel the classics calling to me.