Agatha Christie

So what has Agatha Christie done for us?

/ Caron Allan

Agatha Christie is arguably one of the most well-loved authors of all time. And her books are still being published in new formats, turned into plays and TV series and mini-series, and of course films on the big screen, a hundred years after she first began her writing career. Her books regularly top the online bestseller lists and there have been spin-offs, recreations and fan fiction. You can even buy her ‘secret notebooks’, biographies and merchandise.

Between 1920 and 1973-ish she wrote 66 detective novels under her (first) married name, Agatha Christie, 6 non-detective novels as Mary Westmacott, and 14 short story collections. In addition a number of her works have been adapted for the stage, or were written as plays that have now been novelised.

But far from setting out to be a great author, she only started writing at all due to a bet with her sister, and a certain amount of boredom. Yet she has created some of the best and worst (sorry, but Parker Pyne and Mr Quin????) detectives in the genre, and some of the most devious and controversial plots to ever trick, misdirect and enthrall the reading public. If we sometimes today find her plots predictable or jaded, that is because we can easily forget that she and a handful of other trailblazers have, through their work, made us as readers more sophisticated and at the same time, have aroused expectations to fit the genre. If we can place the books in their original era, then they become even more fresh, more unusual and very, very clever.

So if you’ve been living on the moon, and haven’t read anything by Christie before, or if you’ve only lately come to detective fiction via some other nefarious genre, what are the five books you should read by Agatha Christie?

Well obviously you’ve got to read the first Poirot book, not that sequence is an issue with Christie as it is with many authors. But it’s always interesting to a) read an author’s first book, and b) read the first book to feature a well-known detective. So you absolutely must begin with The Mysterious Affair At Styles, published in 1920 and featuring Hercule Poirot. I would say he is the world’s foremost fictional detective (though fans of Sherlock Holmes would no doubt disagree). This is a phenomenal debut, and an intriguing mystery.

Christie famously disliked Poirot, and her dislike is clear in the rather comical, uncharitable description of him as he makes his first appearance in chapter two, meeting by accident the narrator of the story, his famous side-kick Hastings. Right from the outset, we note that Hastings always treats Poirot with a mixture of pity and affection. We are told: Poirot was an extraordinary-looking little man. He was hardly more than five feet four inches, but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. We are also told of his love of neatness bordering on obsession and, again as always, Hastings is at pains to point out that Poirot’s glories are behind him and he is past his prime. In fact, he’s past his prime for the next, what, thirty, forty years?

So Poirot is not in any shape or form the figure of a hero – he’s short, stout, he limps, he’s fussy and overly particular, and he’s older in years than a classic swash-buckling, overcoming-all-obstacles big-screen hero of that era or even our own. And he has personality flaws in the form of vanity and self-importance, and often, a deep lack of self-belief that I think most of us could identify with today.

But his strengths – oh they are good – he is an acute observer of humanity, he notices EVERYTHING, he understands human psychology, and his success lies in his deep thought processes and his use of logic to work out the details of a crime, that and a reliance on the everyday bigotry that overlooks the intelligence or usefulness of a foreigner on the part of many he comes into contact with.

So that’s Styles.

You also HAVE to read two other classic Poirot’s: Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express. These have become such genre classics almost independent of their creator, and the TV series and various film versions have definitely assisted with that. These books have masterful plots featuring an ensemble cast, and represent neat variations on the country house theme by being a ship and a train. The exotic locations just add to the pleasure.

Miss Marple is one of Christie’s other detectives, and is almost as well known and beloved as Poirot. She is a single old lady who knits and gossips. She solves mysteries by the simple expedient of listening, asking questions and again, like Poirot, knowing a great deal about human behaviour. This is largely the result of her life experience, and the fact that she lives in a small community where everyone knows everyone. Like Poirot, she is often overlooked as a threat to the plans of baddies and evildoers. The best Marple book to start with, in my opinion, is again the book that introduces us to the character, a volume of short stories first published in 1933, The Thirteen Problems (or in the US this is called The Tuesday Club Murders). In this book, each of a group of friends tells of an unsolved murder they know about, and various solutions are put forward by the rest of the group, until in the end, Miss Marple, between counting stitches or casting on a new ball of wool, puts forward the truth, which is then acted upon and checked by someone who is a high-up legal chap. By the end of the book, the others now turn immediately to Miss Marple, knowing she will tell them the only true solution.

Two more famous Marple books, which are in a way companion pieces, are A Caribbean Mystery and Nemesis and are also excellent, showing her personality in her strength of purpose and determination to see justice done.

Okay, I know I said five books, and there they are (not really five but it’s not easy to choose between some of them…). And I can’t resist adding a bonus one: the extraordinary Death Comes As The End. It was published in 1945, and is a traditional-style murder mystery, but it is set in ancient Egypt, and the background was gleaned by Christie from her archaeological exploits with husband number two, Sir Max Mallowan. It’s a great story, full of fascinating detail, and it inspired me as a teenager to learn more about history of all eras.

And of course, you’ve got to read The Murder at the Vicarage, Lord Edgware Dies, my personal favourite, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and my ‘other’ personal favourite, Evil Under the Sun.

I hope that, having read all the above books, you might feel an impulse to go back and read the rest of her works. They are well worth the effort, and I am sure you will agree, not only are they entertaining and enjoyable, you will also feel that you have come to know the woman behind not just these works but the modern cosy mystery genre as a whole. Without Agatha Christie, I believe there would be no Midsomer Murders, no Vera, Shetland, no Line of Duty,  or Inspector Morse.

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And now it’s over to you…

/ Caron Allan / 2 Comments

As you know, I write genre fiction – that is to say it fits neatlyish into a specific genre type of book – I write mysteries. My books are not, by any stretch of the imagination, literary, nor are they ‘general’ what ever that is. Some writers are quite apologetic and embarrassed that they don’t write something high-brow. Not me. I believe that genre fiction has huge benefits and there’s no need to feel that I ‘only’ write mysteries: ‘Oh it’s only a mystery’ or ‘I really only like romances, I’m afraid.’

You see, I believe that books are lifesavers. Books are companionship for the lonely, entertainment for those who are bored. It doesn’t matter if you can’t hear, or if you can’t walk, if you’re old or young, you can enjoy a book. And if you can’t see, you can listen to audiobooks. Books can be a comfort and a much-needed means of escape from what is sometimes an anxious, or difficult world. We all need a break – and a book is perfect for that.

I had cancer a few years back, and whilst I had tests, surgery, appointments, sat in busy, soulless waiting rooms, and anxiously waited for a prognosis, I read books. It was a relief to get out of myself and my thoughts and into a world where the only bad things that happened would be solved by a detective and the villain locked up. Bliss! A few hours free of my own troubles was just what the doctor ordered. I realised as never before just how wonderful it was to get lost in a good book. I was so grateful to the authors who offered me that respite.

I was lucky, and I am now free of cancer and healthy, but my love and respect for books and their authors will never die.

So a little while ago, I asked my mailing list subscribers some questions about what they love. Here are a few of the most popular responses I had:

Q1. I asked, What is the best thing about finding a new book you love?

You said:

  • Finding a new book can be tough, and it’s important to find relatable characters, an engrossing plot and a style that appeals.
  • Many people said they were drawn by the cover – which is exactly what they are designed to do – to lure you in!
  • For some, finding a new book or series is like meeting a new friend.
  • When readers find a new book or series, they love to tell their friends and family about it!
  • Readers like the idea that the book will be theirs to read again and again, and to refer to, a book that adds to their knowledge or understanding (mainly reference books)
  • People love the sense of starting out on a journey, of ‘meeting’ new people and having adventures along the way. A kind of vicarious holiday.

Q2. Do you always read the same genre, or do you like a lot of different types of book?

You were largely split over this, with many people saying they read anything and everything, and others stating that they only ever read the same kind of books. I’m largely that way myself. I do enjoy the odd history book and classics, and poetry, but almost always I turn to crime, figuratively, of course!

Q3. When do you read?

Again, responses were quite split between those who read during the day, usually with lunch or a coffee or cup of tea, and those who read almost entirely at night before going to sleep. Some people read during commuter journeys on trains and buses. Now that I’m at home during the day, I tend to read with coffee or lunch. When I was working in the big wide world, I used to read on the bus or when I had a lunch break. It’s so nice not to have to sit on a bus for hours on end anymore.

Q4. Actual book or eReader?

The odds were almost overwhelmingly stacked in favour of ‘actual’ paper, hold-in-your-hand-and-sniff-the-pages books. Most people who read on eReaders said they did so mainly for the convenience. I must admit I’m the same. My trusty eReader goes with me when I travel or am away from home, but when I’m at home and reading in comfort, it’s always a ‘real’ book. The great thing about eReaders of course, is your nearest and dearest have no idea just how many eBooks you’ve bought – that little secret is between you and your gadget. One person pointed out that the advantage of reading at night on an eReader is that you don’t need to have a light on in the room, so you don’t disturb your partner. A great point!

Q5. What are your other favourite past-times?

Wow we have a lot of pastimes! Here are just a few:

Writing! Reading, obviously. Walking the dog, taking pics of your cats, gardening, flower-arranging, cooking, various arts and crafts including model-making, embroidery, card-making, painting in oils, painting in acrylics, crochet, knitting, drawing, sewing, photography. Then we had the DIYers, the mad exercise buffs, the tennis-players, the golfers, the swimmers, the dancers, the joggers, the cyclists. You like playing board games and card games, going to the pub, spending time with family and friends, eating out, sport, sport and more sport. You love travel. You love learning new things at evening classes. Some of you like to help others in the community, or volunteer in charity shops or care homes. You play musical instruments, you babysit your grandkids, and all kinds of other amazing stuff. You guys are seriously impressive! No wonder you sometimes need to sit down with a book and just chill.

And lastly…

Q6. What are your favourite TV shows, if you watch TV?

Again, a huge range of results here: people gave general responses such as drama, crime, reality shows, documentaries, comedy etc. but we also got some very specific shows mentioned: Peaky Blinders, Line of Duty, Gogglebox, Brooklyn 99, Poirot, Family Guy, Outlander, Once Upon A Time, Bridgerton (I know why you like that!), The Bay, QI, Mock The Week (RIP – and yes I did sign the petition…), Would I Lie To You, I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, The Great British Bake Off, Strictly Come Dancing, Made In Chelsea, Any Star Trek, Star Wars, or Marvel thing, Famalam (not for those who don’t like very, VERY naughty words… but truly hilarious), Unforgotten, any football, all cricket and rugby, True Crime documentaries, and so many more…

I hope you find this as fascinating as I did. Some of the responses were so similar to my own, I feel we could easily be best buds.

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And I think we all know why Jane Austen adaptations are so popular these days…

Reading a mystery

/ Caron Allan / 4 Comments

As you know, I mainly write cozy mysteries, some set in the 1930s or 1960s, some in the ‘now’, and one even set in both the present and the past. Cozy mysteries or cozy crime is the genre where I feel most at home, and those are the kind of books I love to read. I have been reading this genre since I was about 9 or 10 years old, when I began first with the Famous Five, then the Secret Seven, then on to Patricia Wentworth and Agatha Christie. I have always loved the idea of detecting along with the ‘official’ sleuth, trying to get to the clues and figure out ‘whodunit’ before the book’s detective.

If you ever get stuck for books to read, maybe cast your eye over this list and see if there are any names that are new to you. These are the mystery authors whose books I enjoy the most, some are old and some are modern. When you find an author you really like, do you read their books over and over again, or do you remember the too well to do that?

I love to revisit old favourites, but I have a pretty good memory for characters and plots, so I often remember a book too well to enjoy it unless a lot of years have gone by. There are some books where I just reread the beginning – I love a good beginning that sets up the story perfectly and for the reader, there is that delicious sense of anticipation. But I do reread books that I know really well, sometimes I enjoy watching something unfold on the page even though I know exactly what to expect and when.

So then, my favourite mystery authors, here we go, and in no particular order:

Agatha Christie: obvs you’ve all read her books! But have you tried Death Comes As The End – set in ancient Egypt, it’s an interesting variation on the classic murder mystery genre. My personal favourites are Evil Under the Sun, Death Comes As the End, and Death on The Nile.

Patricia Wentworth: if you like ‘em traditional with plenty of romance, these are for you! Often overlooked these days though her books have been enjoying a new lease of life through reprinting. My favourites are: The Girl In The Cellar, The Listening Eye and The Chinese Shawl.

Mary Stewart: not a cozy as such, her books fall into the category of romantic suspense along with authors like Phyllis Whitney. Of Mary’s books, I really enjoy: The Gabriel Hounds, Madam, Will You Talk? and Nine Coaches Waiting. She does that thing where she uses a quote from scripture or Shakespeare as a chapter subtitle. I love that!

Phyllis Whitney: this lady wrote zillions of books before she passed away just a few years ago. My favourites are The Red Carnelian, Columbella and The Turquoise Mask.

Another romantic suspense author is M M Kaye. Look for her ‘Death in…’ short series of 6 books. For me, the best ones are Death in Zanzibar, Death in the Andamans, and Death in Berlin. Try them and let me know if you have a different favourite!

Coming back to modern cozies, how about trying Helena Dixon? I am a big fan of her Miss Underhay series, which like my own books, are set in Britain in the 1930s. Book 1 is called Murder at The Dolphin Hotel, and although you can read them in any order, reading from the beginning will enhance your pleasure as there are continuing storylines that carry on from one book to the next.

Don’t forget to give Sara Rosett a go – she has a couple of series of mysteries, and of course you mustn’t forget Frances Brody, Vaseem Khan and Julia Chapman. Or Julie Wassmer’s Whitstable Pearl series, now wonderfully adapted for TV and starring Kerry Godliman as Pearl.

Or you might try something a little less cozy – perhaps try Ann Cleeves, Abir Mukherjee, Robert Galbraith or Val McDermid to name some of my personal favourite authors.

Let me know how you get on! Who are your favourite mystery authors? Happy reading!

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The world of the murder mystery

/ Caron Allan / 2 Comments

Not sure this guy is really a detective, or just a businessman who is late for a meeting.

As you may know, I love traditional detective fiction aka murder mysteries. You can get mysteries where there’s no murder, but if the stakes aren’t high, my attention isn’t grabbed. And if you’re here, reading this, the chances are, you probably like them too!

In the old Golden Age of detective fiction, there is generally a Countess clutching her pearls, casting disapproving looks at the corpse leaking blood onto her Aubusson carpet, and declaring that surely the perpetrator is some stranger, some tramp or wandering vagabond. ‘It can’t possibly be one of us.’

For me, the thrill of these books is the certain knowledge that, yes, it is most definitely one of ‘us’. One of these characters, outwardly so genteel, so polite, offering around the drinks decanter, or standing when a lady comes into the room, or smiling pleasantly and asking after the vicar’s marrows, it’s one of them. Most of them have known each other for years and see each other almost every day out walking the dog or playing tennis, or at drinks parties or dinner parties, at bridge evenings and coffee mornings. (Because this is the life of villagers of that era, we feel.)

An old lady with glasses can be the rich countess, or the village spinster/busybody. She doesn’t mind whose role she plays so long as she’s busy and well paid in scones and tea.

Like the suspects now before us, we too would like to believe that those around us are just like us, and thereby comes the assumption that no one ‘like us’ could possibly do something so sordid as to kill another person. Because such an action implies loss of self-control, unacceptable levels of emotion, and of course, a denial of the never-say-die attitude that instils us with hope for a better tomorrow. Or if not better, then at least no worse.

So when someone—let’s call him Major Wainwright—is found underneath the billiard table with his head bashed in or a hat pin piercing his eye to skewer his brain, we automatically think, no one I know could possibly commit such an act. Therefore, it could only have been done by someone ‘not from here’. Here endeth the first act of our little fiction.

Sorry about that graphic image, by the way, that fictional situation got really bad, really fast, didn’t it? I’ve been reading Agatha Christie this week, in case you’re wondering. And while I’ve got you here, I’ve no idea why it’s always a major. I can only assume that a warrant officer or a corporal just doesn’t have the same ring?

But when we look at those cast members or story characters around us, we suddenly think, how well do we really know them? This is what writers sometimes call the second act world of the ‘unknown’ or the ‘new world’, where we suddenly see everyone as different and unknowable.

Let’s look at this bunch of weirdos and oddballs.

Take the major’s wife, for example. She’s known for her knitting circles and good works. As is the vicar’s wife, busily visiting the elderly and infirm, taking care of the vulnerable.

The major enjoys civil war reenactments, often heard to say ‘That’s not how I would have done it.’

Then there’s the vicar himself. Does he really need to spend so much time shut away in his office muttering scriptures or Latin phrases to himself? What’s he really doing in there?

What about Miss Simmons, the village busybody, who knows everyone and everyone’s history. They say she has a heart of gold, but is she really over that old romance? After all, she’s never married, does she still carry a torch for that certain someone? these country villages seem to always have a nosy old woman. (Often that’s me.)

What about the village doctor—I bet he knows a secret or two.

Then there are the rest who can change from story to story, as required: there might be a visiting artist, or an aunt from another village, or perhaps a daughter just returned from university to care for an elderly father who once threatened the organist with his walking stick. And of course we have the organist himself. But don’t stop there, there’s the butler, the maid… oh all sorts of people. Maybe a weekending couple, he is ‘something in the city’ and she is a famous model, renowned for her torrid affairs before she settled down to marry a man twenty years older than herself. then there might be a gay couple, known locally as ‘artistic’, (that was euphemism my mum used for a couple of gay men we knew when I was a child in the early 60s) in those unenlightened days, they may have been viewed with suspicion.

But in spite of all these people with their secret backgrounds, their secrets thoughts, ideas and attitudes, we still keep coming back to the same thing: surely no one I know would commit such a vicious crime?

But how well do I really know them? As I watch them gathered around the corpse, their various emotions—triumph, relief, satisfaction, fear, horror, dismay, anger, sorrow—fleetingly appearing on their faces, I’m forced to admit it feels as though I am in a room filled with strangers.

It’s the job of acts 2 and 3 to unmask all their carefully concealed pains and plans and desires to arrive at the truth. Any one of them could be the killer…

And for readers of mysteries, that’s the beauty of it!

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Extras… the minor characters every mystery story needs

/ Caron Allan

Extras complaining to the author about not having a name – again.

Last week was all about the main characters – the detective, the villain, the side-kick and of course the victim(s).

This week, I’m interested in thinking about the minor characters – or extras – in my head I see these as a kind of walk-on part, much like those in any TV show or movie. They don’t always have lines. Sometimes they don’t even have names. They might be described as ‘an elderly dog-walker’ or ‘the woman behind the shop counter’. They crop up everywhere the story goes – in shops, houses, on village greens, in museums, and at dinner parties.

But why are they there?

Extras fulfill a number of criteria and needs for the author and the reader.

  • they can deflect attention away from the culprit or villain.
  • they can provide the reader with useful clues or snippets of information.
  • equally, they can provide us with (less useful, sometimes) red herrings and wrong-turns.
  • they enrich the story so it doesn’t consist of just your four main characters, unless that’s the whole point of the story.
  • they can give us a sneak-peek of something that might happen in a later book if this is a series.
  • they act as a kind of commentator or dramatic chorus to comment on the action or criticise or laud the ‘hero’.

But life as an Extra can be tough and is often unpredictable.

Police or other people in authority (completely unaware all too often that they themselves are Extras, can bully them or wrongfully arrest an Extra and accuse them of terrible things they haven’t done.

You need a huge range of skills as you may be called upon to perform almost any task from forensic assistant to chambermaid.

As an Extra, you might be completely overlooked by the reader who doesn’t even notice you, let alone what a magnificent job you do pretending to be an elderly dog-walker when you’re really a young woman in her twenties on her way to college and you don’t even like dogs.

Alice was at the party with two friends. Who were they? No one knows.

And they never remember your name, which is why you have to have a description attached: Miss Jones, the games mistress at school where victim used to teach. You might even find yourself very near the bottom of a long list of characters, a list designed to help readers remember all the people in the book they’ve met but don’t remember.

No one asks your opinion. ‘Tell us, Poirot,’ they cry, at the end of the book. ‘Who did this dastardly deed? and why?’ I mean, all the Extras probably know this information too, don’t they. But no one ever asks them. They just come in with the tea tray and leave without anyone noticing.

Likewise, no one ever asks an Extra if they’re okay and how they feel about being shut up in a big country house with loads of stairs, and a murderer roaming about bumping people off willy-nilly.

And as if all this is not enough, when the author gets bored, you might even end up as the next victim, just to ‘spice things up a bit’.

How is that fair? It’s not just a policeman’s life that’s terrible hard. Try being an Extra for one book, let alone a whole series. I’m only surprised they don’t have a union.

‘I hate being in crowd scenes,’ said the person in the red outfit. ‘So do I!’ said another person in yellow. ‘It’s so anonymous.’

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The Big Four: the four main characters in a murder mystery

/ Caron Allan

I love murder mysteries. I doubt this comes as any kind of a surprise to most people reading this blog. Characters in a murder mystery fall into one of two categories: they are either part of the Big Four, or they are Extras. This week I want to quickly chat about the Big Four.

Who are the Big Four?

The Big Four are the main characters without whom we would have no murder mystery. They are: The Victim(s), The Villain(s), The Side-kick(s) and The Detective(s).

And yes, they often come as a pair or even more, not just as a lone individual. Detectives, for example, often come as a pair – one an amateur and one a professional. Villains too, can sometimes deliberately confuse the reader by sharing the limelight with another villain, and share the crimes too.

And who doesn’t love a high body-count? Why stop at one Dastardly Deed when you can have two, or three, or…

Let me introduce you…

The Victim(s)

Victims, as avid mystery lovers know, are always bumped off for a reason. And obviously it is The Detective(s)’s(s’)(??) job to discover why and bring the perpetrator to justice.

The richer, the more arrogant, cruel, cold, grasping, greedy and crafty our victim is/was, the better we like it, don’t we? We can then take a vicarious pleasure in their demise as we would never, ever do such a thing ourselves in real life. And the worse they are, the nastier and more creative their all-too-timely death should be. BUT.

They can’t be so bad that we don’t care if their killer evades detection.

In my view, ideally there should be two or three of these demises per mystery because, if I’m honest, I’m always a bit disappointed if there’s ‘only’ one.

The Victim is there for one reason only–to make us, the reader feel clever:  to provide something for The Detective to detect, of course.

The Villain

Whenever I hear the word ‘villain’ I always think of a man in a swirling black cape and top hat, twirling his moustaches menacingly (or smugly, either will do)and saying ‘Mwah haha’.

Sadly, the days of Dick Dastardly have gone, (drat, drat and double drat) and nowadays The Villain can look like anyone:

A little old lady.

A priest.

A stalwart Major-type.

A handsome young man on his honeymoon. (I’m looking at you, Death on the Nile.)

A nurse. (Sad Cypress)

Even a child. (Crooked House)

The Villain is often charming, often invokes our sympathy due to baggage and issues, and can even make us think, ‘Aww well, she/he’s had a tough childhood, maybe we should kindly overlook those four grisly murders and let her/him have a new chance at life.’

We must be on our guard at all times throughout the book until the moment this villain is unmasked.

The Side-kick

The Sidekick has a demanding role. They are there as a kind of placeholder/proxy for the reader.

They must be clingy to the point of irritating, sticking by The Detective’s side when they really should go away and leave him/her alone to think things through. But no, they stick around at all times, asking stupid, inane and tedious questions, so that we don’t have to. We sit at home in our comfiest armchair and loudly exclaim, ‘Rookie mistake, I already knew that…’ but really we’re thinking, ‘Ooh I wasn’t sure, but now that you mention it…’

The side-kick – desperately needed to help us survive the journey

So they are there to help The Detective and the reader to find the evidence and the clues and to arrive at the truth of the mystery.

In fact they don’t create a dialogue, but they are the dialogue – through The Side-kick, the reader can talk to The Detective and The Detective can talk to us.

And finally:

The Detective*

The Detective can be anyone.

Rather like The Villain, The Detective can be a law-and-order professional, or someone from an associated profession (forensics, psychology…), or an amateur with a gift, a nurse, a priest (The Complete Father Brown stories) a stalwart major-type, a nurse, a handsome young man on his honeymoon or even a child (The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie).

The Detective has one job and one job only: to find out whodunit and bring them to justice.

It’s essential that her or his main characteristics include:

Passionate desire for justice, even at risk to self, it goes without saying, I hope.

Incredibly close attention to detail: ‘Sacre bleu, this dust is 3.14159 milimetres in ze thickness, therefore the killer was the maid and the crime was committed on Tuesday afternoon.’* The whole case may depend on just this kind of minuteness.

‘Mesdames et messieurs, allow me to reveal at last, the identity of the criminal’.

Very keen observation skills: ‘Zut alors, the footprints in the mud are of a depth of 3.14159 milimetres, therefore we must find a person of 6 feet 1 inch who weighs 189lbs.’

From the two above attributes, we can also see that they must be good at mathematics too. 

Lastly, the Detective must have a huge ego: We readers love to have all the suspects in a room at the end of the story, and to be taken step by step through the crime to learn the identity of The Villain, and to have the satisfaction of them being led away in handcuffs. Therefore it is essential that our Detective loves to show off just a little and to deliver a lecture on how clever he/she is and how many different things we missed.

So next time you are reading a mystery, keep a handy notebook and pen by your side, so you can check for all these points!

*must supply own white hat

*sorry btw, for me all fictional detectives are Hercule Poirot, even when they’re not

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Come back with me: It’s 1935 #timetravel #daydreaming

/ Caron Allan / 3 Comments

Coming soon to a posh drawing room near you…

Let’s play a game of ‘what shall we do this weekend’.

I’ve been thinking about how amazing it would to travel back in time to the actual 1930s* instead of just daydreaming/writing or pretending/obsessing about it…

This is what I’ve come up with:

Things I’d be excited to do/try:

A posh weekend at a country house with lots of people who are glamorous and speak nicely.

Ditto the big frocks and hair-dos.

And gloves and hats.

And the four/five/six course dinners.

Bridge evenings.

Going to the house of someone posh for ‘drinks’.

Dancing to the radio in a kind of impromptu disco at home with dinner guests.

The excitement of talkies – films with speaking actors!

Meet Gary Cooper when he was young and gorgeous…

And knowing there is a study or library, and perhaps even secret passages.

And bell-pulls to summon people from the depths of the house. I’d be like a child, ringing the bell then have to run away as there would be no legitimate reason to ring for them…

Maybe a maze? Or a rose garden? Or both? What about a croquet lawn? I am certain I’d be an amazing talent when it came to croquet. I can always bowl a great croque.

It might be nice to – very occasionally – have all the men stand up out of politeness when I come into the room. Or stop using bad words because I am in the vicinity and am a ‘lady’ (until they get to know me better, of course).

Travelling by steam train in the actual era they were used, not just on a preserved line in my usual jeans/t-shirt combo.

Things I’d miss terribly:

Being able to say all those bad words that are so good for stress relief when things go wrong. In the 1930s, I’d probably be vilified for my potty-mouth. Though to be fair, most of my rage is triggered by modern technology so it wouldn’t be an issue in the 1930s, when a telegram was still pretty exciting, and indoor plumbing was all too often a thing reserved for the gentry.

Sorry if I’ve destroyed your illusions about the way a writer speaks/acts/looks, btw.

My freezer, and my microwave.

Going to a cafe ALL the time to sit and watch the world go by whilst pretending to write.

The Internet (sorry to all you nay-sayers).

Nipping to a supermarket – even on a SUNDAY to get the bits and pieces I completely forgot I urgently needed.

Books by all my favourite post-1930s authors such as Ann Cleeves, Helena Dixon, Julie Wassmer, Helen Forbes, Emma Baird…

TV: Midsomer Murders/Death in Paradise/Vera/Madame Blanc/Strike/Van der Valk/Darby and Joan/Three Pines/The Chelsea Detective/Dalgliesh/Whitstable Pearl… (can you spot a trend here?) 

All my modern vaccinations – I don’t want to catch diptheria/small pox/scarlet fever etc

Being able to slob about in jeggings and a baggy jumper – because I reckon there could be times when looking posh 1930s-style might just be too much effort…

Being allowed an opinion about anything other than babies, flower arranging or hair-dos.

So what do you think? What would you be desperate to see/try/person to meet? Or what would you miss the most? Or what about another era? What would be your perfect era to visit if that were possible?

*obviously I’m dragging my poor family along with me – I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere exciting without them.

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These fragments I have shored against my ruin

/ Caron Allan

I first shared this blog post in 2016. To date, it’s still my best-performing blog post. Not sure if that is because it’s one of my shortest – I am quite a waffler these days.

But I love that line. It’s line 431 from T S Eliot’s The Waste Land. The first time I read the poem, when I got to this line I burst into tears, because it seemed such a beautiful summation, of the poem, of my life, everything. Words do that to me–I’m a very emotional person, I’m glad to say.

I believe that our lives are made up of fragments. We are, in essence, a walking, talking collection of every experience we’ve ever had. This includes what we’ve read. Words.

So often I am out and about–yes, I escape now and again–and I hear something, see something, smell something which provokes a memory of something I’ve read. Most often it is snatches of conversation I overhear, being nosey and a crime writer, which as we all know gives me special dispensation to eavesdrop on others. (‘I ain’t been dropping no eaves, sir, honest.’) Words seem to lead to more words.

I hear someone say, ‘The wonderful thing…’ and mentally I’ve added ‘…about Tiggers is Tiggers are wonderful things.’ (I didn’t promise it was anything erudite!) Or someone may say ‘Wherever I go…’ and I think to myself ‘there’s always Pooh, there’s always Pooh and me.’ (By the way, Winnie the Pooh is not just for kids. Just read the chapter called The Piper At the Gates of Dawn…)

It’s not just A A Milne, though. So often snatches of Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, songs, poems, plays, hymns, prayers, all sorts of words come into my head. I can’t look at spring flowers without thinking ‘A host of golden daffodils’ or ‘April is the cruellest month’. (The Waste Land again!) A tall person becomes ‘thou painted Maypole’. A mouse is a ‘wee sleekit cowrin tim’rous beastie’. (Burns of course, who else?)

If something annoying happens, I hear Miss Marple whisper, ‘Oh dear, how extremely vexing,’ or I hear someone say something stupid, and Mr Bennett’s frustrated, outraged, ‘Until you come back…I shall not hear two words of sense spoken together’ comes to mind. I share his pain. In extremis, ‘I shall be in my library; I’m not to be disturbed.’ (Not unless there’s cake or Midsomer Murders.) Or I might hear Miss Silver’s indulgent, ‘In their own way, men can be quite useful.’

Or if sorrows come in, it’s Matthew Arnold’s painful comment filled with longing, ‘Ah love, let us be true to one another,’ because he believed that one another was all we have. (Dover Beach).

Or…

There’s always another wonderful sketch of words from someone who lived many years before my time. Or a contemporary. Or the next generation. We all use and need words.

And because of this, none of us can ever come to a text, for the first time, or the tenth, ‘cold’ or ‘new’. There is really no neutral approach in the human soul. We bring with us the sum of all our experiences and emotions, our world-view and our beliefs, and those inform what we read, and mercifully sometimes, what we read can inform all those things too.

When I was studying literature ‘back in the day’, I remember The Waste Land was one of our set texts. Critics deplored it, dismissing it as a pastiche, a patchwork quilt of other peoples’ work, revealing only a good memory for quotations. Students shuddered and declared it was one of the worst experiences of their life. But for some of us, there was a sense of ‘wow, I never knew poetry could be like this!’

When I read his words, ‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins’ (line 431), I said to my tutor, I think he is saying that literature, that words, will save us in times of crisis, bolster us when we are at a low ebb. I was told I was wrong, but in spite of that, I still choose to believe this could be one meaning of these, for me, immortal words. These fragments of remembered stories, poems, previous experiences, feelings, of words, I have stored up, internalised, to use as a defence, shored against my ruin, my unhappiness, times of want, misery, sorrow and confusion. Ruin.

For me it is a reminder that many things in life are transient, passing, temporary, but I will always carry within me the sum of what I have read. Just read Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 and tell me I’m wrong. It’s short, it’s sweet, it’s got a cheeky grin at the end. It’s perfect, and all human life is there.

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Patricia Wentworth’s The Chinese Shawl – a recent reread

/ Caron Allan / 4 Comments

I’ve always loved reading, and mysteries have always been my ‘thing’. Of all the authors in all the bookshops and libraries in all the world, Agatha Christie and Patricia Wentworth remain my favourites by a very long chalk, with Patricia a wee bit out in front.

Why do I love them so much when a) there are thousands—literally–of modern authors out there, and b) these traditional mysteries seem rather tired and old-fashioned by today’s standards?

Obviously I don’t believe they are tired and old-fashioned. I mean, yes, the author styles are out of touch with our era, and the roles and attitudes of characters are sometimes really horrifying. But for me, it’s the irresistible lure of the era: a time of long frocks, a time of afternoon tea, dinner parties, bridge evenings (I can’t even play bridge) and so forth. Yes, the plots can seem tame, contrived and are often insular, but as Christie’s Miss Marple often comments, ‘you see every aspect of life in a small village.’ And what we need to remember is that these stories were written, some of them, almost hundred years ago, and were fresh, new and very exciting at that time—the plots weren’t overdone or overused – they were more or less brand new, and I’m sure at the time, many of the plots would have seemed innovative.

Patricia Wentworth’s works are a wee bit tamer and even more moralistic than Agatha Christie’s, but we need to remember that there is a little over twenty years between their dates of birth, so I would definitely place Wentworth squarely in the previous generation of mid-Victorian Britain. Like many of Christie’s settings, Wentworth’s stories often revolve around a country house, and a small village, and her sleuth, Miss Silver is in many respects quite similar to Miss Marple. I like a village or country house setting; for me it’s like viewing a sample of the whole of society under a microscope. I love to see how ordinary (kind of, if rather posher than me!) people react in an apparently ‘safe’ setting when something goes horribly wrong.

I often reread these books. I have read all of Christie’s works at least twice, often many more times than that, and the majority of Wentworth’s many more times than that, although I’m still working my way through her non-series books. I have five or six different copies of some of Wentworth’s books, all with different covers, from different eras, and one of them is quite valuable. I won’t tell you which in case you nick it. (Clue 1: It cost nearly as much as my wedding dress. Clue 2: I got married in 1981 and my wedding dress didn’t cost nearly as much as it would have done today, but even so my mother gasped…)

I recently decided to reread The Chinese Shawl by Patricia Wentworth. As you can see, I used quite a few sticky notes as I read it and made notes for my own fun/blog writing at the same time. I wish I could say there was a special coded reason for using pink then yellow sticky notes, but it’s simply that I ran out of pink!

The Chinese Shawl was published in 1943, placing it in the latter third of Wentworth’s writing career. Her first novel, a romance, was published in 1910. She died at the beginning of 1961.

There’s something a bit different about reading a book if you are a writer, and also, if you’ve read it several times before. As well as an enjoyable read, it’s been an interesting, and useful experience. Different things struck me this time. Here are a few of them: (btw – contains spoilers!)

Point 1. Wentworth is a great one for setting the scene. Her murders seldom happen as quickly as, for example, Christie’s. We get a lot of background—sometimes I feel maybe there’s too much, but it does mean that by the time the reader reaches the murder scene, they know the main characters quite well, and are deeply immersed in the story. The murder quite often doesn’t take place until almost halfway through the book, and sometimes we don’t meet the sleuth, Miss Silver, until that point, and often even later, although in this one, she is already there, in situ as a house guest, from chapter ten.

I also feel quite often in Wentworth’s books, that you can see the murder coming. But it’s not in an annoying, ‘Der—I knew that was going to happen’ kind of way. It’s more like watching a car crash in slow motion: you can see the inevitable outcome and are powerless to stop it. You can only watch it happen in a kind of fascinated horror. (Not that they are gory or horrifying in that sense.)

Point 2. The ‘sleuth’ is Miss Maud Silver. Like Christie’s Miss Marple, Miss Silver is an elderly lady, a retired former governess who primly knits her way through interviews and afternoon teas and picks up all sorts of gossip, clues and insights as she does so. She is an acute observer of human life, and a highly moral, highly principled person. In fact sometimes she’s a bit annoying in her manner which can seem outmoded by today’s standards. But she is a treasure, too. Her main advantage is that she is often ignored, overlooked or just plain underestimated. Miss Silver often makes remarks that I find hilarious, such as this one from Lonesome Road (pub. 1939) ‘In their own way, men can be quite useful.’ Men as a breed are for Miss Silver largely a closed book. She remarks somewhere that the chief difference between men and women is that men require two eggs for breakfast instead of one. 

Point 3. In this book, the victim is not a very nice person, and so it’s hard to mourn her fate. But Wentworth never condones murder or violence, and even in the death of a nasty piece of work, there is a righteous indignation and a determination to get to the bottom of things. For Wentworth and her detectives, nothing ever justifies murder, and that’s a position I thoroughly applaud.

Point 4. Obviously, we have a sidekick. Usually a sidekick is a ‘Watson’ type character. In this case, it’s the official investigator – Randal March. He is not my favourite sidekick for Miss Silver—he is arrogant, pompous and (usually) far too self-satisfied. But then, maybe that’s more realistic for the era? All I can say is, thank goodness for Miss Silver, his former governess, as she usually takes him down a peg of two. In this book he has risen to the rank of Superintendent. When it comes to a supporting cast for Miss Silver, I prefer her other sidekick, Sergeant Frank Abbott, and if absolutely necessary, I can even put up with Abbott’s boss, Inspector Ernest Lamb, who is devoted to his three daughters. It’s a refreshing change to have a detective who is a family man with no massive issues.

Point 5. There is a wealth of period detail in this book, from fashion and etiquette to black-out regulations of WW2. I love this stuff, we get a really strong sense of the era and feel so deeply entrenched in the book. There is always a strong romantic, (quite an old-fashioned, polite romance,) thread running through the mystery. What I particularly like is the contrast between the dutiful ‘war work’ of bitter Miss Agnes Fane and that of Miss Silver:

Miss Fane surveyed it (Miss Silver’s knitting) with disfavour.

‘You should be knitting comforts for the troops.’

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

‘Babies must have vests,’ she remarked in a mild but stubborn tone.

For me this sums up perfectly the difference between Miss Silver and Agnes Fane, the alpha female of the story. Agnes Fane is all about being seen to be right and perfect in every way, and above reproach. She craves status, yet her heart is in many ways cold though obsessive. Miss Silver, dowdy, slightly irritating, definitely overly moralistic and governessy, nevertheless does everything she does from a place of love, which is why, for me, she is the best sleuth. She is devoted to her former charges, their loved ones and their growing families.

And lest we forget, she’s a working girl, a gentlewoman come down in the world due the premature death of her parents and the very real need to earn her own living. Unlike, for example, Miss Marple, she is not an amateur detective who does it because she’s nosy or in the right place at the right time, she hires herself out at a decent rate as a ‘private enquiry agent’. This has given her the means to afford a nice flat in London and a maid to take care of her. Girl power! She don’t need no man!

Point 6. As in any good mystery, there are a number of suspects. The murdered woman leaves behind her a slew of cast aside lovers, a divorced husband, the wife of a cast aside lover and another chap’s girlfriend, not to mention other possibilities. It seems as though almost anyone could have carried out the dastardly deed. And then of course, comes the twist—maybe she was killed by mistake? That leaves the already wide door thrown even wider. Who killed her, and why?

Point 7. Actually, when I said sidekick, I should have said sidekicks, because front and centre in this story is our heroine, Laura Fane, and her new beau, a former lover of the murder victim, all-round war hero, Carey Desborough. Actually the romance between these two flourishes within the space of a day or two—it is love at first sight, and it’s essential for the lovebirds that they help Miss Silver get to the bottom of the crime so everyone can live happily ever after. Well, almost everyone. And a rather unbelievable attempt to set up first one of these as the baddie then the other fails to convince the reader, and so we know we can rest happily in the fact of their happiness.

Point 8. Really my only criticism of Wentworth’s books generally, and this one in particular is her frequent use of that hateful tool ‘the had I but known/little did they know’. I hate this ploy with a passion. And it crops up here several times. On top of that, we almost always have a phrase along the lines of ‘little did they know but the events of that evening were to be sifted and gone over with the utmost care, and everything they did and said would be held up to the light and examined.’ *sigh* Moving on…

Point 9. Wentworth loves a dramatic ending. And so do I. Although I knew ‘whodunnit’ because I’ve read this book loads of times, I still savoured the outcome. There is too, generally a nice ‘wrap-up’ scene where the good guys take tea with Miss Silver at the end and she expounds and moralises, a good egg teaching her pupils. This one is slightly different as the wrap-up is with Randal March, but it’s still good to get insight into their thoughts about the crime and its resolution. And of course, the two lovebirds go off together into the sunset, but it’s a slightly scaled back happiness—after all, there’s still a war on. A very satisfying ending.

As a review, I know this isn’t much cop. I’m hopeless at reviewing, but if it’s made you think, ‘I might read that’, then my work here is done. Enjoy!

Other of Wentworth’s best works include:

Lonesome Road

The Listening Eye

The Alington Inheritance

The Clock Strikes Twelve

And there are loads more, both series, and non-series.

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An apology. And (finally) The Killer Speaks

/ Caron Allan

Since this whole covid thing hit, I’ve noticed I’ve become quite–erm–well, doolally is what my mother would have called it. I’ve gone a bit forgetful and dopey. And the most recent example of this is when, two weeks ago, I posted a blog entitled ‘More killer words’, and I actually said:

‘I mentioned a while ago (I’ve already forgotten when it was…) that one of the best parts of a murder mystery is when the killer is ‘on-stage’ and speaks.’

Well it’s taken me until last weekend to figure out where I said that, and it was in my subscriber newsletter – so no, I never did start that conversation here on my blog. On the blog we had the sequel but not the prequel, if you see what I mean. Sorry about that! So now, without further ado, I bring you the original (horribly long, feel free to completely ignore it) The Killer Speaks:

You know how, at the end of a murder mystery, they assemble all the suspects, and the police, and the investigator—whether an official officer of the law or an amateur sleuth, or even a paid private eye—tells everyone how the crime was done? I love that bit.

On the one hand, it bugs me that it’s done at all in fiction, because clearly, in real life the police don’t bring all the suspects to Great Aunt Madge’s house and, when everyone is sitting comfortably, begin to recount the case from the very beginning, filling in each step with a bit of evidence or some superhuman deductive reasoning. And usually I hate it when things in books aren’t done ‘right’.

But I love that big reveal, and the complacency of the investigator, having everyone there to listen to his/her theories. I love the ego of it, the pomp, the ‘you will all listen to me’ arrogance, and so even though I strive to make my own stories more or less believable, I sometimes just give in and go with that wonderful sense of occasion.

I’m not an expert on the Golden Age of murder mystery writing, but I am very familiar with some of the well-known authors of that time, notably Agatha Christie and Patricia Wentworth, and I have read quite a bit by some of their contemporaries: Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Georgette Heyer. And I’m pretty sure it was this bunch who created the concept of this kind of finale. Or perhaps if we go a little further back, we will find Sherlock Holmes setting this up as the ultimate in wrap-ups, or Wilkie Collins’s Sergeant Cuff. I’m not clear where it began. I just know I love it.

We so often read of Poirot standing in front of a group of rather irritable, seated suspects whilst he expounds, his manner a cross between hectoring and lecturing. Miss Marple, by dint of her age, is usually seated, sometimes knitting, and has a far more hesitant, apologetic style, and is so self-deprecating. Both Poirot and Marple suffer from moral outrage: a murder is an affront and will not be tolerated mainly on the grounds of moral integrity rather than the unbiased basis of the law.

I enjoy ‘listening’ as they bring their case. But then comes the point I love the most.

The killer speaks.

Because this is the reason we hang onto Poirot’s thoughts for so long. We want to hear (read, I mean really) the killer say in her or his own words, WHY they did it. Yes, we do need to know how. And where, and with what weapon, we want to know about motives and alibis, but oh so often, the abiding desire in us is to know WHY. Why did they do such a terrible, irremediable thing?

We are often told that anyone could kill given the right circumstances and sufficient motive. Many of us doubtless would say, ‘No, I would never, could never kill. I can’t even bring myself to kill a woodlouse or a spider.’

I have asked myself if I could kill. I have killed bugs and beasties, generally by accident or out of sheer clumsiness. But I’ve never—as far as I’m aware—killed anything bigger than a bee. Unless you count calling the rat man. That I suppose is more like being an accessory, or conspiring to kill… From the rat’s point of view, they’d probably say I was a murderer. To me it’s different. I suppose murderers always say that.

But if it was a case of happening upon a person who was deliberately harming someone else, and I saw a way to stop it, what would I do? I’d like to think I’d never turn my back on someone in desperate need. But how far would I go?

So I think that’s why we—all of us avid crime fiction fans—enjoy getting to the pinnacle of a mystery, following the clues, deducing and pondering, and hanging onto every word to find out ‘the who’ and ‘the why’ behind the whole thing. As the killer shifts in his or her seat, the spotlight shifts to them, and this is their big moment. The chance to explain their WHY. We hold our breath, not daring to make a sound in case we miss a word. They lean forward, look us in the eye, they clear their throat, and they speak…

Which book finale have you read which gave you the biggest buzz? Do you prefer your killer to go down denying and fighting, or do you prefer your books to end with a kind of proud and well-bred admission of the truth?

Get in touch! Let me know what you think!

In the meantime, in case you haven’t read it–you won’t need to now you know who the killer is–you can click here to go to one of my own ‘big moments’ when the killer speaks. This is taken from my novel The Last Perfect Summer of Richard Dawlish: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 4. And it absolutely does contain a ton of SPOILERS.

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