lyzard's list: Reading many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore in 2021 - Part 2

The sand cat (aka the sand dune cat) is found in rocky desert areas from North Africa through the Middle East and into Central Asia. Smaller than the domestic cat and deceptively kitten-like in appearance, they are skilled and aggressive hunters and have been known to attack and kill venomous snakes. They can survive without a water source, getting their moisture only from their prey.

There is debate over the conservation status of the sand cat. Because of their distribution and their preferred habitat, their numbers are naturally low; but there is growing concern about the adverse effects of habitat degradation, particularly as the biology and ecology of these animals are poorly understood, and they do not breed well in captivity. Recently, however, several conservation programs have been established and one or two zoos have announced the birth of kittens.


  

Last year's thread title was taken from a relatively obscure poem by Edgar Allan Poe. It was some time later before it occurred to me that - duh - I had overlooked a perfectly apt line from Poe's most famous poem:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
        Only this and nothing more...”

Probably no-one needs this but just in case, the full text of The Raven may be found here.

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Currently reading:



Elsie And The Raymonds by Martha Finley (1889)

2021 reading:

January:

1. The Pelham Murder Case by Monte Barrett (1930)
2. Mystery At Lynden Sands by J. J. Conningtion (1928)
3. Dead Man Twice by Christopher Bush (1930)
4. Eight To Nine by R. A. J. Walling (1934)
5. The Secret Of The Old Clock by Carolyn Keene (1930)
6. The Van Diemen's Land Warriors, or The Heroes Of Cornwall by "Pindar Juvenal" (1827)
7. The Reviv'd Fugitive: A Gallant Historical Novel by Peter Belon (1690)
8. The Land Of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll (1980)
9. Patty Blossom by Carolyn Wells (1917)
10. Miracle Creek by Angie Kim (2019)
11. Fools' Gold by Dolores Hitchens (1958)
12. Beast In View by Margaret Millar (1955)
13. The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith (1956)
14. Cause Of Death by Cyril H. Wecht with Mark Curridan and Benjamin Wecht (1993)
15. The Secret Of Terror Castle by Robert Arthur Jr (1964)

February:

16. Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope (1862)
17. The Benevent Treasure by Patricia Wentworth (1953)
18. Patty--Bride by Carolyn Wells (1918)
19. Lost Boy Lost Girl by Peter Straub (2003)
20. Call For The Dead by John le Carré (1961)
21. 813 by Maurice Leblanc (1910)
22. Blanche On The Lam by Barbara Neely (1992)
23. The Autobiography Of Mark Rutherford by William Hale White (1881)
24. The Adventuress by Arthur B. Reeve (1917)
25. The Secret History Of The Four Last Monarchs Of Great Britain by "R. B." (1691)

March:

26. The Source by James A. Michener (1965)
27. The Mystery Of The Stuttering Parrot by Robert Arthur Jr (1964)
28. Gray Dusk by Octavus Roy Cohen (1920)
29. Mr Jelly's Business by Arthur Upfield (1937)
30. Death Comes To Perigord by John Alexander Ferguson (1931)
31. Simon The Coldheart by Georgette Heyer (1925)
32. Patty And Azalea by Carolyn Wells (1919)
33. The Recess: A Tale Of Other Times by Sophia Lee (1785)
34. Anecdotes Of A Convent by Anonymous (1771)

April:

35. The Observations by Jane Harris (2006)
36. Valley Of The Dolls by Jacqueline Susann (1966)
37. The Executor by Margaret Oliphant (1861)
38. The Rector by Margaret Oliphant (1861)

Books in transit:

Upcoming requests:

On interlibrary loan / branch transfer / storage / Rare Book request:
The Wraith by Philip MacDonald {State Library NSW, JFR}
Poison In The Pen by Patricia Wentworth {SMSA}
Winds Of Evil by Arthur Upfield {SMSA}

On loan:
*Valley Of The Dolls by Jacqueline Susann (14/04/2021)
**Mr Jelly's Business by Arthur Upfield (14/04/2021)
**Blanche On The Lam by Barbara Neely (14/04/2021)
**The Benevent Treasure by Patricia Wentworth (25/04/2021)
**Lost Boy Lost Girl by Peter Straub (25/04/2021)

Potential requests:

The Picaroon Does Justice by Herman Landon {CARM}

McLean Of Scotland Yard by George Goodchild {JFR}
The Sea Mystery by Freeman Wills Crofts {JFR}

The Marquise Of O., And Other Stories by Heinrich von Kleist {Fisher storage}
Our Mr Wrenn by Sinclair Lewis {Fisher storage}
From Man To Man by Olive Schreiner {Fisher Storage - 2 volumes}

Purchased and shipped:

Ongoing reading projects:

Blog reads:
Chronobibliography: Incognita; or, Love And Duty Reconciled by William Congreve
Authors In Depth:
- Forest Of Montalbano by Catherine Cuthbertson
- Shannondale (aka "The Three Beauties; or, Shannondale: A Novel") by E.D.E.N. Southworth
- Lady Audley's Secret / The White Phantom by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- Ellesmere by Mrs Meeke
- The Cottage by Margaret Minifie
- The Old Engagement by Julia Day
- The Abbess by Frances Trollope
Reading Roulette: Pique by Frances Notley / Our Mr Wrenn by Sinclair Lewis
Australian fiction: Louisa Egerton by Mary Leman Grimstone / Alfred Dudley; or, The Australian Settlers by Sarah Porter
Gothic novel timeline: Anecdotes Of A Convent by Anonymous
Early crime fiction: The Mysteries Of London by G. W. M. Reynolds
Silver-fork novels: Sayings And Doings; or, Sketches From Life (First Series) by Theodore Hook
Related reading: Gains And Losses by Robert Lee Wollf / The Man Of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie / Le Loup Blanc by Paul Féval / Theresa Marchmont; or, The Maid Of Honour by Catherine Gore

Group / tutored reads:

COMPLETED: Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope (thread here)

NOW: The Executor / The Rector by Margaret Oliphant (thread here)

General reading challenges:

America's best-selling novels (1895 - ????):
Next up: Valley Of The Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

Georgette Heyer: straight historical fiction:
Next up: Beauvallet

Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver series:
Next up: Poison In The Pen

Virago chronological reading project:
Next up: The Executor / The Rector by Margaret Oliphant

The C.K. Shorter List of Best 100 Novels:
Next up: The Life Of Mansie Wauch by David Moir

Mystery League publications:
Next up: The Gutenberg Murders by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning

Banned In Boston!: (here)
Next up: From Man To Man by Olive Schreiner

The evolution of detective fiction:
Next up: The Mysteries Of London (Volume III) by G. W. M. Reynolds

Random reading 1940 - 1969:
Next up: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh / The Foundling by Francis Spellman

Potential decommission / re-shelving:
Next up: Mind Hunter by John Douglas

Completed challenges:
- Georgette Heyer historical romances in chronological order
- Agatha Christie mysteries in chronological order
- Agatha Christie uncollected short stories

Possible future reading projects:
- Nobel Prize winners who won for fiction
- Daily Telegraph's 100 Best Novels, 1899
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize
- Berkeley "Books Of The Century"
- Collins White Circle Crime Club / Green Penguins
- Dell paperbacks
- "El Mundo" 100 best novels of the twentieth century
- 100 Best Books by American Women During the Past 100 Years, 1833-1933
- 50 Classics of Crime Fiction 1900–1950 (Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor)
- The Guardian's 100 Best Novels
- Life Magazine "The 100 Outstanding Books of 1924 - 1944" (Henry Seidel Canby)
- "40 Trashy Novels You Must Read Before You Die" (Flavorwire)
- best-novel lists in Wikipedia article on The Grapes Of Wrath
- Pandora 'Mothers Of The Novel'
- Newark Library list (here)
- "The Story Of Classic Crime In 100 Books" (here)
- Dean's Classics series
- "Fifty Best Australian Novels" (here)

TBR notes:

Currently 'missing' series works:

Dead Men At The Folly by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #13) {Rare Books}
The Robthorne Mystery by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #17) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, held / Internet Archive / Kindle}
Poison For One by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #18) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, held}
Shot At Dawn by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #19) {Rare Books}
The Corpse In The Car by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #20) {CARM}
Hendon's First Case by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #21) {Rare Books}
Mystery At Olympia (aka "Murder At The Motor Show") (Dr Priestley #22) {Kindle / State Library NSW, held / Internet Archive}
In Face Of The Verdict by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #24) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, held / Internet Archive}

Six Minutes Past Twelve by Gavin Holt (Luther Bastion #1) {State Library NSW, held}
The White-Faced Man by Gavin Holt (Luther Bastion #2) {State Library NSW, held}

Secret Judges by Francis D. Grierson (Sims and Wells #2) {Rare Books}

The Platinum Cat by Miles Burton (Desmond Merrion #17 / Inspector Arnold #18) {Rare Books}

The Double-Thirteen Mystery by Anthony Wynne (Dr Eustace Hailey #2) {Rare Books}

The Black Death by Moray Dalton {CARM}

1931:

The Wraith by Philip MacDonald {State Library NSW, JFR}
McLean Of Scotland Yard by George Goodchild {State Library NSW, JFR}

The Rum Row Murders by Charles Reed Jones {Rare Books}
The Murder Rehearsal by B. G. Quin {Rare Books}
Unsolved by Bruce Graeme {Rare Books}

The Picaroon Does Justice by Herman Landon {CARM}
The Crooked Lip by Herbert Adams {Rare Books / CARM}

The Matilda Hunter Murder by Harry Stephen Keeler {Kindle}

Death By Appointment by "Francis Bonnamy" (Audrey Walz) (Peter Utley Shane #1) {Rare Books}
The Click Of The Gate by Alice Campbell (Tommy Rostetter #1) {CARM}
The Bell Street Murders by Sydney Fowler (S. Fowler Wright) (Inspector Cambridge and Mr Jellipot #1) {Rare Books}
The Murderer Returns by Edwin Dial Torgerson (Pierre Montigny #1) {Rare Books}

Storm by Charles Rodda {National Library, ILL?}

NB: Rest of 1931 listed on the Wiki

Series back-reading:

The Red-Haired Girl by Carolyn Wells {Rare Books}
Invisible Death by Brian Flynn {Kindle}
Murder At Fenwold (aka "The Death Of Cosmo Revere") by Christopher Bush {Kindle}
The Clifford Affair by A. Fielding {Kindle / Roy Glashan's Library}
Burglars In Bucks by George and Margaret Cole {Fisher Library}
The Case With Nine Solutions by J. J. Connington {HathiTrust / Kindle}
Poison by Lee Thayer {AbeBooks / Amazon}

Completist reading:

Sing Sing Nights by Harry Stephen Keeler (#4) {CARM / Kindle}
XYZ by Anna Katharine Green (#5) {Project Gutenberg}
The Window At The White Cat by Mary Roberts Rinehart (#4) {Project Gutenberg}
The White Cockatoo by Mignon Eberhart {Rare Books}

Unavailable / expensive:

The Amber Junk (aka The Riddle Of The Amber Ship) by Hazel Phillips Hanshew (Cleek #9)
The Hawkmoor Mystery by W. H. Lane Crauford
The Double Thumb by Francis Grierson (Sims and Wells #3)
The Shadow Of Evil by Charles J. Dutton (Harley Manners #2)
The Seventh Passenger by Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry (Jerry Boyne #4)
The Hanging Woman by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #11)

A Century (And A Bit) Of Reading:

A book a year from 1800 - 1900!

1800: Juliania; or, The Affectionate Sisters by Elizabeth Sandham
1801: Belinda by Maria Edgeworth
1802: The Infidel Father by Jane West
1803: Thaddeus Of Warsaw by Jane Porter
1804: The Lake Of Killarney by Anna Maria Porter
1805: The Impenetrable Secret, Find It Out! by Francis Lathom
1806: The Wild Irish Girl by Sydney Owenson
1807: Corinne; ou, l'Italie by Madame de Staël
1809: The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter
1812: The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth
1814: The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties by Frances Burney
1815: Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock
1820: The Sketch Book Of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. by Washington Irving
1821: The Ayrshire Legatees; or, The Pringle Family by John Galt / Valerius: A Roman Story by J. G. Lockhart / Kenilworth by Walter Scott
1822: Bracebridge Hall; or, The Humorists by Washington Irving
1823: The Two Broken Hearts by Catherine Gore
1824: The Adventures Of Hajji Baba Of Ispahan by James Justinian Morier
1826: Lichtenstein by Wilhelm Hauff / The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
1827: The Epicurean by Thomas Moore / The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
1829: Wilhelm Meister's Travels by Johann Goethe / The Collegians by Gerald Griffin / Louisa Egerton; or, Castle Herbert by Mary Leman Grimstone
1830: Alfred Dudley; or, The Australian Settlers by Sarah Porter
1832: The Refugee In America by Frances Trollope
1836: The Tree And Its Fruits; or, Narratives From Real Life by Phoebe Hinsdale Brown
1845: Zoe: The History Of Two Lives by Geraldine Jewsbury / The Mysteries Of London (Volume I) by G. W. M. Reynolds
1846: The Mysteries Of London (Volume II) by G. W. M. Reynolds
1847: Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë / The Macdermots Of Ballycloran by Anthony Trollope / The Mysteries Of London: Volume III by G. W. M. Reynolds
1848: The Kellys And The O'Kellys by Anthony Trollope
1850: Pique by Sarah Stickney Ellis
1851: The Mother-In-Law; or, The Isle Of Rays by E.D.E.N. Southworth
1857: The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope
1859: The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden / The Bertrams by Anthony Trollope
1860: The Semi-Attached Couple by Emily Eden / Castle Richmond by Anthony Trollope
1862: Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope
1863: Marian Grey; or, The Heiress Of Redstone Hall by Mary Jane Holmes
1869: He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope
1873: Had You Been In His Place by Lizzie Bates
1874: Chaste As Ice, Pure As Snow by Charlotte Despard
1877: Elsie's Children by Martha Finley
1880: The Duke's Children: First Complete Edition by Anthony Trollope / Elsie's Widowhood by Martha Finley
1881: Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen / The Beautiful Wretch by William Black / The Autobiography Of Mark Rutherford by William Hale White
1882: Grandmother Elsie by Martha Finley
1883: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson / Elsie's New Relations by Martha Finley
1884: Elsie At Nantucket by Martha Finley
1885: The Two Elsies by Martha Finley / Two Broken Hearts by Robert R. Hoes
1886: Elsie's Kith And Kin by Martha Finley
1887: Elsie's Friends At Woodburn by Martha Finley
1888: Christmas With Grandma Elsie by Martha Finley
1889: Under False Pretences by Adeline Sergeant
1892: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
1894: Martin Hewitt, Investigator by Arthur Morrison / The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen
1895: Chronicles Of Martin Hewitt by Arthur Morrison
1896: The Island Of Dr Moreau by H. G. Wells / Adventures Of Martin Hewitt by Arthur Morrison
1897: Penelope's Progress by Kate Douglas Wiggin
1898: A Man From The North by Arnold Bennett / The Lust Of Hate by Guy Newell Boothby
1899: Agatha Webb by Anna Katharine Green / Dr Nikola's Experiment by Guy Newell Boothby
1900: The Circular Study by Anna Katharine Green

Timeline of detective fiction:

Pre-history:
Things As They Are; or, The Adventures Of Caleb Williams by William Godwin (1794)
Mademoiselle de Scudéri by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1819); Tales Of Hoffmann (1982)
Richmond: Scenes In The Life Of A Bow Street Officer by Anonymous (1827)
Memoirs Of Vidocq by Eugene Francois Vidocq (1828)
Le Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac (1835)
Passages In The Secret History Of An Irish Countess by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1838); The Purcell Papers (1880)
The Murders In The Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales by Edgar Allan Poe (1841, 1842, 1845)

Serials:
The Mysteries Of Paris by Eugene Sue (1842 - 1843)
The Mysteries Of London by Paul Feval (1844)
The Mysteries Of London by George Reynolds (1844 - 1848)
- The Mysteries Of London: Volume I
- The Mysteries Of London: Volume II
- The Mysteries Of London: Volume III
- The Mysteries Of London: Volume IV
The Mysteries Of The Court Of London by George Reynolds (1848 - 1856)
John Devil by Paul Feval (1861)

Early detective novels:
Recollections Of A Detective Police-Officer by "Waters" (William Russell) (1856)
The Widow Lerouge by Emile Gaboriau (1866)
Under Lock And Key by T. W. Speight (1869)
Checkmate by J. Sheridan LeFanu (1871)
Is He The Man? by William Clark Russell (1876)
Devlin The Barber by B. J. Farjeon (1888)
Mr Meeson's Will by H. Rider Haggard (1888)
The Mystery Of A Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume (1889)
The Queen Anne's Gate Mystery by Richard Arkwright (1889)
The Ivory Queen by Norman Hurst (1889) (Check Julius H. Hurst 1899)
The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill (1892)

Female detectives:
The Diary Of Anne Rodway by Wilkie Collins (1856)
Ruth The Betrayer; or, The Female Spy by Edward Ellis (1862-1863)
The Female Detective by Andrew Forrester (1864)
Revelations Of A Lady Detective by William Stephens Hayward (1864)
The Law And The Lady by Wilkie Collins (1875)
Madeline Payne; or, The Detective's Daughter by Lawrence L. Lynch (Emma Murdoch Van Deventer) (1884)
Mr Bazalgette's Agent by Leonard Merrick (1888)
Moina; or, Against The Mighty by Lawrence L. Lynch (Emma Murdoch Van Deventer) (sequel to Madeline Payne?) (1891)
The Experiences Of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective by Catherine Louisa Pirkis (1893)
When The Sea Gives Up Its Dead by Elizaberth Burgoyne Corbett (Mrs George Corbett)
Dorcas Dene, Detective by George Sims (1897)
- Amelia Butterworth series by Anna Katharine Grant (1897 - 1900)
Hagar Of The Pawn-Shop by Fergus Hume (1898)
The Adventures Of A Lady Pearl-Broker by Beatrice Heron-Maxwell (1899)
Miss Cayley's Adventures by Grant Allan (1899)
Hilda Wade by Grant Allan (1900)
Dora Myrl, The Lady Detective by M. McDonnel Bodkin (1900)
The Investigators by J. S. Fletcher (1902)
Lady Molly Of Scotland Yard by Baroness Orczy (1910)
Constance Dunlap, Woman Detective by Arthur B. Reeve (1913)
Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective by Hugh C. Weir (1914)

Related mainstream works:
Adventures Of Susan Hopley by Catherine Crowe (1841)
Men And Women; or, Manorial Rights by Catherine Crowe (1843)
Hargrave by Frances Trollope (1843)
Clement Lorimer by Angus Reach (1849)

True crime:
Clues: or, Leaves from a Chief Constable's Note Book by Sir William Henderson (1889)
Dreadful Deeds And Awful Murders by Joan Lock

Series and sequels, 1866 - 1919:

(1866 - 1876) **Emile Gaboriau - Monsieur Lecoq - The Widow Lerouge (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1878 - 1917) **Anna Katharine Green - Ebenezer Gryce - The Mystery Of The Hasty Arrow (13/13)
(1896 - 1909) **Melville Davisson Post - Randolph Mason - The Corrector Of Destinies (3/3)
(1894 - 1903) **Arthur Morrison - Martin Hewitt - The Red Triangle (4/4)
(1895 - 1901) **Guy Newell Boothby - Dr Nikola - Farewell, Nikola (5/5)
(1897 - 1900) **Anna Katharine Green - Amelia Butterworth - The Circular Study (3/3)
(1899 - 1917) **Anna Katharine Green - Caleb Sweetwater - The Mystery Of The Hasty Arrow (7/7)
(1899 - 1909) **E. W. Hornung - Raffles - Mr Justice Raffles (4/4)
(1900 - 1974) Ernest Bramah - Kai Lung - Kai Lung: Six / Kai Lung Raises His Voice (7/7)

(1903 - 1904) **Louis Tracy - Reginald Brett - The Albert Gate Mystery (2/2)
(1905 - 1925) **Baroness Orczy - The Old Man In The Corner - Unravelled Knots (3/3)}
(1905 - 1928) **Edgar Wallace - The Just Men - Again The Three Just Men (6/6)
(1907 - 1942) R. Austin Freeman - Dr John Thorndyke - The Jacob Street Mystery (26/26)
(1907 - 1941) *Maurice Leblanc - Arsene Lupin - The Crystal Stopper (5/25) {Project Gutenberg}
(1909 - 1942) *Carolyn Wells - Fleming Stone - The Red-Haired Girl (21/49) {Rare Books}
(1909 - 1929) *J. S. Fletcher - Inspector Skarratt - Marchester Royal (1/3) {Kindle}
(1910 - 1936) *Arthur B. Reeve - Craig Kennedy - The Panama Plot (12/24) {mobilereads / Internet Archive}
(1910 - 1946) A. E. W. Mason - Inspector Hanaud - The House In Lordship Lane (7/7)
(1910 - 1917) Edgar Wallace - Inspector Smith - Kate Plus Ten (3/3)
(1910 - 1930) **Edgar Wallace - Inspector Elk - The Twister (4/6) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1910 - 1932) *Thomas, Mary and Hazel Hanshew - Cleek - The Amber Junk (9/12) {AbeBooks}
(1910 - 1918) **John McIntyre - Ashton-Kirk - Ashton-Kirk: Criminologist (4/4)
(1910 - 1928) **Louis Tracy - Winter and Furneaux - The Postmaster's Daughter (5/9) {Project Gutenberg}

(1911 - 1935) G. K. Chesterton - Father Brown - The Scandal Of Father Brown (5/5)
(1911 - 1940) *Bertram Atkey - Smiler Bunn - The Smiler Bunn Brigade (2/10) {rare, expensive}
(1912 - 1919) **Gordon Holmes (Louis Tracy) - Steingall and Clancy - The Bartlett Mystery (3/3)
(1913 - 1973) Sax Rohmer - Fu-Manchu - President Fu Manchu (8/14) {fadedpage.com}
(1913 - 1952) *Jeffery Farnol - Jasper Shrig - The High Adventure (4/9) {State Library NSW, JFR / Rare Books}
(1914 - 1950) Mary Roberts Rinehart - Hilda Adams - Episode Of The Wandering Knife (5/5)
(1914 - 1934) Ernest Bramah - Max Carrados - The Bravo Of London (5/5)
(1915 - 1936) *John Buchan - Richard Hannay - The Thirty-Nine Steps (1/5) {Fisher Library / Project Gutenberg / branch transfer / Kindle}
(1916 - 1917) **Carolyn Wells - Alan Ford - Faulkner's Folly (2/2) {owned}
(1916 - 1927) **Natalie Sumner Lincoln - Inspector Mitchell - The Nameless Man (2/10) {AbeBooks}
(1916 - 1917) **Nevil Monroe Hopkins - Mason Brant - The Strange Cases Of Mason Brant (1/2) {Coachwhip Books}
(1918 - 1923) **Carolyn Wells - Pennington Wise - The Vanishing Of Betty Varian (6/8) {Project Gutenberg}
(1918 - 1939) Valentine Williams - The Okewood Brothers - The Spider's Touch (6/?) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1918 - 1944) Valentine Williams - Clubfoot - The Spider's Touch (7/8) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1918 - 1950) *Wyndham Martyn - Anthony Trent - The Mysterious Mr Garland (3/26) {CARM}
(1919 - 1966) *Lee Thayer - Peter Clancy - Poison (7/60) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1919 - 1922) **Octavus Roy Cohen - David Carroll - Midnight (4/4) {Project Gutenberg}

*** Incompletely available series
** Series complete pre-1931
* Present status pre-1931

Series and sequels, 1920 - 1927:

(1920 - 1948) *H. C. Bailey - Reggie Fortune - Mr Fortune Wonders (8/23) {Internet Archive / State Library NSW, JFR}
(1920 - 1975) Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot - Curtain (38/38)
(1920 - 1921) **Natalie Sumner Lincoln - Ferguson - The Unseen Ear (2/2)
(1920 - 1937) *"Sapper" (H. C. McNeile) - Bulldog Drummond - The Third Round (3/10 - series continued) {Roy Glashan's Library}

(1921 - 1929) **Charles J. Dutton - John Bartley - Streaked With Crimson (9/9)
(1921 - 1925) **Herman Landon - The Gray Phantom - Gray Magic (5/5)

(1922 - 1973) Agatha Christie - Tommy and Tuppence - Postern Of Fate (5/5)
(1922 - 1927) *Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry - Jerry Boyne - The Seventh Passenger (4/5) {Amazon}
(1922 - 1931) Valentine Williams - Inspector Manderton - Death Answers The Bell (4/4)

(1923 - 1937) Dorothy L. Sayers - Lord Peter Wimsey - In The Teeth Of The Evidence (14/14)
(1923 - 1924) **Carolyn Wells - Lorimer Lane - The Fourteenth Key (2/2)
(1923 - 1927) Annie Haynes - Inspector Furnival - The Crow's Inn Tragedy (3/3)

(1924 - 1959) Philip MacDonald - Colonel Anthony Gethryn - The Wraith (6/24) {ILL / JFR}
(1924 - 1957) *Freeman Wills Crofts - Inspector French - The Sea Mystery (4/30) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, JFR / ILL / Kindle}
(1924 - 1935) * / ***Francis D. Grierson - Inspector Sims and Professor Wells - The Smiling Death (6/13) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1924 - 1940) *Lynn Brock - Colonel Gore - The Dagwort Coombe Murder (5/12) {Kindle}
(1924 - 1933) *Herbert Adams - Jimmie Haswell - The Crooked Lip (2/9) {Rare Books}
(1924 - 1944) *A. Fielding - Inspector Pointer - The Clifford Affair (4/23) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1924 - 1936) *Hulbert Footner - Madame Storey - The Casual Murderer (8/14) {Roy Glashan's Library}

(1925 - 1961) ***John Rhode - Dr Priestley - Dead Men At The Folly (13/72) {Rare Books}
(1925 - 1953) *G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Superintendent Wilson - Burglars In Bucks (aka "The Berkshire Mystery") (7/?) {Fisher Library}
(1925 - 1932) Earl Derr Biggers - Charlie Chan - Keeper Of The Keys (6/6)
(1925 - 1944) Agatha Christie - Superintendent Battle - Towards Zero (5/5)
(1925 - 1934) *Anthony Berkeley - Roger Sheringham - The Second Shot (6/10) {academic loan / Rare Books}
(1925 - 1950) *Anthony Wynne (Robert McNair Wilson) - Dr Eustace Hailey - The Double-Thirteen Mystery (2/27) (aka "The Double Thirteen") {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1925 - 1939) *Charles Barry (Charles Bryson) - Inspector Lawrence Gilmartin - The Smaller Penny (1/15) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1925 - 1929) **Will Scott - Will Disher - Disher--Detective (aka "The Black Stamp") (1/3) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1925 - 1927) **Francis Beeding - Professor Kreutzemark - The Hidden Kingdom (2/2)

(1926 - 1968) *Christopher Bush - Ludovic Travers - Murder At Fenwold (aka "The Death Of Cosmo Revere") (4/63) {Kindle / Rare Books}
(1926 - 1939) S. S. Van Dine - Philo Vance - The Kennel Murder Case (6/12) {fadedpage.com}
(1926 - 1952) J. Jefferson Farjeon - Ben the Tramp - Ben Sees It Through (4/8) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1926 - ????) *G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Everard Blatchington - Burglars In Bucks (aka "The Berkshire Mystery") (2/6) {Fisher Library}
(1926 - ????) *Arthur Gask - Gilbert Larose - The Dark Highway (2/27) {University of Adelaide / Project Gutenberg Australia / mobilereads}
(1926 - 1931) *Aidan de Brune - Dr Night - Dr Night (1/3) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1926 - 1931) * / ***R. Francis Foster - Anthony Ravenhill - Anthony Ravenhill, Crime Merchant (1/?) {expensive}

(1927 - 1933) *Herman Landon - The Picaroon - The Picaroon Does Justice (2/7) {Book Searchers / CARM}
(1927 - 1932) *Anthony Armstrong - Jimmie Rezaire - The Trail Of The Lotto (3/5) {CARM / AbeBooks}
(1927 - 1937) *Ronald Knox - Miles Bredon - The Body In The Silo (3/5) {Kindle / Rare Books}
(1927 - 1958) *Brian Flynn - Anthony Bathurst - Invisible Death (6/54) {Kindle}
(1927 - 1947) *J. J. Connington - Sir Clinton Driffield - The Case With Nine Solutions (4/17) {Rare Books / Kindle / mobilereads}
(1927 - 1935) *Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Malleson) - Scott Egerton - Mystery Of The Open Window (4/10) {Rare Books}
(1927 - 1932) *William Morton (aka William Blair Morton Ferguson) - Kirker Cameron and Daniel "Biff" Corrigan - Masquerade (1/4) {expensive}
(1927 - 1929) **George Dilnot - Inspector Strickland - The Crooks' Game (1/2) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1927 - 1949) **Dornford Yates - Richard Chandos - Blood Royal (3/8) {State Library, JFR / Kindle*}

*** Incompletely available series
** Series complete pre-1931
* Present status pre-1931

Series and sequels, 1928 - 1930:

(1928 - 1961) Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver - Poison In The Pen (27/33) {SMSA / fadedpage.com}
(1928 - 1936) *Gavin Holt - Luther Bastion - The Garden Of Silent Beasts (5/17) {academic loan / State Library NSW, held}
(1928 - 1936) Kay Cleaver Strahan - Lynn MacDonald - The Meriwether Mystery (5/7) {Kindle}
(1928 - 1937) John Alexander Ferguson - Francis McNab - The Grouse Moor Mystery (4/5) {HathiTrust}
(1928 - 1960) *Cecil Freeman Gregg - Inspector Higgins - The Murdered Manservant (aka "The Body In The Safe") (1/35) {rare, expensive}
(1928 - 1959) *John Gordon Brandon - Inspector Patrick Aloysius McCarthy - The Black Joss (2/53) {State Library NSW, held}
(1928 - 1935) *Roland Daniel - Wu Fang / Inspector Saville - Wu Fang (2/6) {expensive}
(1928 - 1946) *Francis Beeding - Alistair Granby - Pretty Sinister (2/18) {academic loan}
(1928 - 1930) **Annie Haynes - Inspector Stoddart - The Crystal Beads Murder (4/4)
(1928 - 1930) **Elsa Barker - Dexter Drake and Paul Howard - The Cobra Candlestick (aka "The Cobra Shaped Candlestick") (1/3) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1928 - ????) Adam Broome - Denzil Grigson - Crowner's Quest (2/?) {AbeBooks / eBay}

(1929 - 1947) Margery Allingham - Albert Campion - The Case Of The Late Pig (8/35) {interlibrary loan / Kindle / fadedpage.com}
(1929 - 1984) Gladys Mitchell - Mrs Bradley - The Devil At Saxon Wall (6/67) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1929 - 1937) Patricia Wentworth - Benbow Smith - Down Under (4/4)
(1929 - ????) Mignon Eberhart - Nurse Sarah Keate - Dead Yesterday And Other Stories (6/8) (NB: multiple Eberhart characters) {expensive / limited edition} / Wolf In Man's Clothing (7/8) {Rare Books / Kindle}
(1929 - ????) Moray Dalton - Inspector Collier - The Belgrave Manor Crime (5/14) {Kindle}
(1929 - ????) * / ***Charles Reed Jones - Leighton Swift - The King Murder (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1931) Carolyn Wells - Kenneth Carlisle - The Skeleton At The Feast (3/3) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1967) *George Goodchild - Inspector McLean - McLean Of Scotland Yard (1/65) {State Library NSW, held}
(1929 - 1979) *Leonard Gribble - Anthony Slade - The Case Of The Marsden Rubies (1/33) {AbeBooks / Rare Books / re-check Kindle}
(1929 - 1932) *E. R. Punshon - Carter and Bell - The Unexpected Legacy (1/5) {expensive, omnibus / Rare Books}
(1929 - 1971) *Ellery Queen - Ellery Queen - The Roman Hat Mystery (1/40) {interlibrary loan}
(1929 - 1966) *Arthur Upfield - Bony - Winds Of Evil (5/29) {SMSA}
(1929 - 1937) *Anthony Berkeley - Ambrose Chitterwick - The Piccadilly Murder (2/3) {interlibrary loan}
(1929 - 1940) *Jean Lilly - DA Bruce Perkins - The Seven Sisters (1/3) {AbeBooks / expensive shipping}
(1929 - 1935) *N. A. Temple-Ellis (Nevile Holdaway) - Montrose Arbuthnot - The Inconsistent Villains (1/4) {Rare Books}
(1929 - 1943) *Gret Lane - Kate Clare Marsh and Inspector Barrin - The Cancelled Score Mystery (1/9) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1961) Henry Holt - Inspector Silver - The Necklace Of Death (3/16) {Rare Books}
(1929 - 1930) **J. J. Connington - Superintendent Ross - The Two Tickets Puzzle (2/2)
(1929 - 1941) *H. Maynard Smith - Inspector Frost - Inspector Frost In The City (2/7) {Kindle}
(1929 - ????) *Armstrong Livingston - Jimmy Traynor - The Doublecross (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1932) Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson - Sir John Saumarez - Re-Enter Sir John (3/3)
(1929 - 1940) *Rufus King - Lieutenant Valcour - Murder By The Clock (1/11) {AbeBooks, omnibus / Kindle}
(1929 - 1933) *Will Levinrew (Will Levine) - Professor Brierly - For Sale - Murder (4/5) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1932) *Nancy Barr Mavity - Peter Piper - The Body On The Floor (1/5) {AbeBooks / Rare Books / State Library NSW, held}
(1929 - 1934) *Charles J. Dutton - Professor Harley Manners - The Shadow Of Evil (2/6) {expensive}
(1929 - 1932) Thomas Cobb - Inspector Bedison - Who Closed The Casement? (4/4)
(1929 - ????) * J. C. Lenehan - Inspector Kilby - The Tunnel Mystery (1/?) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1936) *Robin Forsythe - Anthony Algernon Vereker - Missing Or Murdered (1/5) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1931) */***David Frome (Zenith Jones Brown) - Major Gregory Lewis - The Murder Of An Old Man (1/3) {rare, expensive}

(1930 - ????) Moray Dalton - Hermann Glide - The Strange Case Of Harriet Hall (4/?) {Kindle}
(1930 - 1960) ***Miles Burton - Desmond Merrion - The Platinum Cat (17/57) {Rare Books}
(1930 - 1960) ***Miles Burton - Inspector Henry Arnold - The Platinum Cat (18/57) {Rare Books}
(1930 - 1933) Roger Scarlett - Inspector Kane - Murder Among The Angells (4/5) {expensive}
(1930 - 1941) *Harriette Ashbrook - Philip "Spike" Tracy - The Murder Of Sigurd Sharon (3/7) {Kindle / Rare Books}
(1930 - 1943) Anthony Abbot - Thatcher Colt - About The Murder Of The Night Club Lady (3/8) {AbeBooks / serialised}
(1930 - ????) ***David Sharp - Professor Fielding - I, The Criminal (4/?) {unavailable?}
(1930 - 1950) *H. C. Bailey - Josiah Clunk - Garstons (aka The Garston Murder Case) (1/11) {HathiTrust}
(1930 - 1968) *Francis Van Wyck Mason - Hugh North - The Vesper Service Murders (2/41) {Kindle}
(1930 - 1976) Agatha Christie - Miss Jane Marple - Miss Marple's Final Cases (14/14)
(1930 - 1939) Anne Austin - James "Bonnie" Dundee - Murdered But Not Dead (5/5)
(1930 - 1950) *Leslie Ford (as David Frome) - Mr Pinkerton and Inspector Bull - The Hammersmith Murders (1/11) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1930 - 1935) *"Diplomat" (John Franklin Carter) - Dennis Tyler - Murder In The State Department (1/7) {Amazon / Abebooks}
(1930 - 1962) *Helen Reilly - Inspector Christopher McKee - The Diamond Feather (1/31) {Rare Books}
(1930 - 1933) *Mary Plum - John Smith - The Killing Of Judge MacFarlane (1/4) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1930 - 1945) *Hulbert Footner - Amos Lee Mappin - The Nation's Missing Guest (3/10) {CARM / NLA / newspapers.com}
(1930 - 1933) *Monte Barrett - Peter Cardigan - Murder Off Stage (2/4) {Amazon}
(1930 - 1931) Vernon Loder - Inspector Brews - Death Of An Editor (2/2)
(1930 - 1931) *Roland Daniel - John Hopkins - The Rosario Murder Case (1/2) {unavailable?}
(1930 - 1961) *Mark Cross ("Valentine", aka Archibald Thomas Pechey) - Daphne Wrayne and her Four Adjusters - The Adjusters (1/53) {rare, expensive}
(1930 - ????) *Elaine Hamilton - Inspector Reynolds - Some Unknown Hand (aka "The Westminster Mystery") (1/?) {Kindle}
(1930 - 1932) *J. S. Fletcher - Sergeant Charlesworth - The Borgia Cabinet (1/2) {fadedpage.com / Kindle}
(1930 - ????) *Carolyn Keene - Nancy Drew - The Hidden Staircase (2/?) {fadedpage.com}

*** Incompletely available series
** Series complete pre-1931
* Present status pre-1931

Series and sequels, 1931 - 1932:

(1931 - 1940) Bruce Graeme - Superintendent Stevens and Pierre Allain - Satan's Mistress (4/8) {expensive / National Library of Australia, missing??}
(1931 - 1951) Phoebe Atwood Taylor - Asey Mayo - The Tinkling Symbol (6/24) {Rare Books / academic loan}
(1931 - 1955) Stuart Palmer - Hildegarde Withers - Murder On The Blackboard (3/18) {Kindle / Internet Archive, borrow}
(1931 - 1933) Sydney Fowler - Inspector Cleveland - Arresting Delia (4/4)
(1931 - 1934) J. H. Wallis - Inspector Wilton Jacks - The Capital City Mystery (2/6) {Rare Books}
(1931 - ????) Paul McGuire - Inspector Cummings - Daylight Murder (aka "Murder At High Noon") (3/5) {academic loan / State Library NSW, held}
(1931 - ????) Carlton Dawe - Leathermouth - Crumpled Lilies (3/??) {Trove}
(1931 - 1947) R. L. Goldman - Asaph Clume and Rufus Reed - Murder Without Motive (2/6) {Wildside Press}
(1931 - 1959) ***E. C. R. Lorac (Edith Caroline Rivett) - Inspector Robert Macdonald - The Murder On The Burrows (1/46) {rare, expensive}
(1931 - 1935) Clifton Robbins - Clay Harrison - Methylated Murder (5/5)
(1931 - 1972) Georges Simenon - Inspector Maigret - Chez les Flamands (14/75) {ILL}
(1931 - 1942) R. A. J. Walling - Garstang - The Stroke Of One (1/3) {Amazon}
(1931 - ????) Francis Bonnamy (Audrey Boyers Walz) - Peter Utley Shane - Death By Appointment (1/8) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1931 - 1937) J. S. Fletcher - Ronald Camberwell - Murder In The Squire's Pew (3/11) {Kindle / State Library NSW, held}
(1931 - 1933) Edwin Dial Torgerson - Sergeant Pierre Montigny - The Murderer Returns (1/2) {Rare Books)
(1931 - 1933) Molly Thynne - Dr Constantine and Inspector Arkwright - Death In The Dentist's Chair (2/3) {Kindle}
(1931 - 1935) Valentine Williams - Sergeant Trevor Dene - The Clue Of The Rising Moon (4/4)
(1931 - 1942) Patricia Wentworth - Frank Garrett - Pursuit Of A Parcel (5/5)
(1931 - 1931) Frances Shelley Wees - Michael Forrester and Tuck Torrie - The Mystery Of The Creeping Man (2/2)

(1932 - 1954) Sydney Fowler - Inspector Cambridge and Mr Jellipot - The Bell Street Murders (1/11) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1932 - 1935) Murray Thomas - Inspector Wilkins - Buzzards Pick The Bones (1/3) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1932 - ????) R. A. J. Walling - Philip Tolefree - The Five Suspects (5/22) {Kindle / Rare Books}
(1932 - 1962) T. Arthur Plummer - Detective-Inspector Andrew Frampton - Shadowed By The C. I. D. (1/50) {unavailable?}
(1932 - 1936) John Victor Turner - Amos Petrie - Death Must Have Laughed (1/7) {Kindle / Rare Books}
(1932 - 1944) Nicholas Brady (John Victor Turner) - Ebenezer Buckle - The House Of Strange Guests (1/4) {Kindle}
(1932 - 1933) Barnaby Ross (aka Ellery Queen) - Drury Lane - Drury Lane's Last Case (4/4) {AbeBooks}
(1932 - ????) Richard Essex (Richard Harry Starr) - Jack Slade - Slade Of The Yard (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1932 - 1933) Gerard Fairlie - Mr Malcolm - Shot In The Dark (1/3) (State Library NSW, held}
(1932 - 1934) Paul McGuire - Inspector Fillinger - The Tower Mystery (aka Death Tolls The Bell) (1/5) {Rare Books / State Library, held}
(1932 - 1946) Roland Daniel - Inspector Pearson - The Crackswoman (1/6) {unavailable?}
(1932 - 1951) Sydney Horler - Tiger Standish - Tiger Standish (1/11) {Rare Books}

*** Incompletely available series

Series and sequels, 1933 onwards:

(1933 - 1959) John Gordon Brandon - Arthur Stukeley Pennington - West End! (1/?) {AbeBooks / State Library, held}
(1933 - 1940) Lilian Garis - Carol Duncan - The Ghost Of Melody Lane (1/9) {AbeBooks}
(1933 - 1934) Peter Hunt (George Worthing Yates and Charles Hunt Marshall) - Allan Miller - Murders At Scandal House (1/3) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1933 - 1968) John Dickson Carr - Gideon Fell - Hag's Nook (1/23) {Better World Books / State Library NSW, interlibrary loan}
(1933 - 1939) Gregory Dean - Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Simon - The Case Of Marie Corwin (1/3) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1933 - 1956) E. R. Punshon - Detective-Sergeant Bobby Owen - Information Received (1/35) {academic loan / State Library NSW, held / Rare Books}
(1933 - 1934) Jackson Gregory - Paul Savoy - A Case For Mr Paul Savoy (1/3) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1933 - 1957) John Creasey - Department Z - The Death Miser (1/28) {State Library NSW, held}
(1933 - 1940) Bruce Graeme - Superintendent Stevens - Body Unknown (2/2) {expensive}
(1933 - 1952) Wyndham Martyn - Christopher Bond - Christopher Bond, Adventurer (1/8) {rare}

(1934 - 1949) Richard Goyne - Paul Templeton - Strange Motives (1/13) {unavailable?}
(1934 - 1941) N. A. Temple-Ellis (Nevile Holdaway) - Inspector Wren - Three Went In (1/3) {unavailable?}
(1934 - 1953) Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr) - Sir Henry Merivale - The Plague Court Murders (1/22) {Fisher Library}
(1934 - 1953) Leslie Ford (Zenith Jones Brown) - Colonel Primrose - The Strangled Witness (1/17) {Rare Books}
(1934 - 1975) Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe - Fer-de-Lance (1/?) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, JFR / Kindle}
(1934 - 1935) Vernon Loder - Inspector Chace - Murder From Three Angles (1/2) {Kindle / ????}

(1935 - 1939) Francis Beeding - Inspector George Martin - The Norwich Victims (1/3) {AbeBooks / Book Depository / State Library NSW, held}
(1935 - 1976) Nigel Morland - Palmyra Pym - The Moon Murders (1/28) {State Library NSW, held}
(1935 - 1941) Clyde Clason - Professor Theocritus Lucius Westborough - The Fifth Tumbler (1/10) {unavailable?}
(1935 - ????) G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Dr Tancred - Dr Tancred Begins (1/?) (AbeBooks, expensive / State Library NSW, held / Rare Books}
(1935 - ????) George Harmon Coxe - Kent Murdock - Murder With Pictures (1/22) {AbeBooks}
(1935 - 1959) Kathleen Moore Knight - Elisha Macomber - Death Blew Out The Match (1/16) {AbeBooks / Amazon}

(1936 - 1974) Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Malleson) - Arthur Crook - Murder By Experts (1/51) {interlibrary loan}
(1936 - 1940) George Bell Dyer - The Catalyst Club - The Catalyst Club (1/3) {AbeBooks}
(1936 - 1956) Theodora Du Bois - Anne and Jeffrey McNeil - Armed With A New Terror (1/19) {unavailable?}
(1936 - 1945) Charles Kingston - Chief Inspector Wake - Murder In Piccadilly (1/7) {Kindle}
(1937 - 1953) Leslie Ford (Zenith Jones Brown) - Grace Latham - Ill Met By Moonlight (1/16) {Kindle}
(1938 - 1944) Zelda Popkin - Mary Carner - Death Wears A White Gardenia (1/6) {Kindle}
(1938 - 1939) D. B. Olsen (Dolores Hitchens) - Lt. Stephen Mayhew - The Clue In The Clay (1/2) {expensive}
(1939 - 1942) Patricia Wentworth - Inspector Lamb - The Ivory Dagger (11/?) {fadedpage.com}
(1939 - 1940) Clifton Robbins - George Staveley - Six Sign-Post Murder (1/2) {Biblio / rare}
(1939 - 1956) D. B. Olsen (Dolores Hitchens) - Rachel Murdock - The Cat Saw Murder (1/12) {expensive}

(1940 - 1943) Bruce Graeme - Pierre Allain - The Corporal Died In Bed (1/3) {unavailable?}
(1941 - 1951) Bruce Graeme - Theodore I. Terhune - Seven Clues In Search Of A Crime (1/7) {unavailable?}
(1945 - 1952) D. B. Olsen (Dolores Hitchens) - Professor Pennyfeather - Bring The Bride A Shroud (aka "A Shroud For The Bride") (1/6) {National Library}
(1947 - 1953) Michael Gilbert - Inspector Hazelrigg - They Never Looked Inside (2/6) {State Library NSW, JFR}
(1955 - 1991) Patricia Highsmith - Tom Ripley - Ripley Under Ground (2/5) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1957 - 1993) Chester B. Himes - The Harlem Cycle - For Love Of Imabelle (aka "A Rage In Harlem") (1/9) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1961 - 2017) - John le Carré - George Smiley - A Murder Of Quality (2/9) {Fisher Library / Blacktown Library}
(1964 - 1987) Robert Arthur Jr (and others) - The Three Investigators - The Mystery Of The Whispering Mummy (3/43) {freebooklover}
(1992 - 2000) Barbara Neely - Blanche White - Blanche Among The Talented Tenth (2/4) {Fisher Library / Kindle}

*** Incompletely available series

Non-crime series and sequels:

(1861 - 1876) **Margaret Oliphant - Carlingford - The Doctor's Family (3/7) {Project Gutenberg}
(1867 - 1905) **Martha Finley - Elsie Dinsmore - Elsie And The Raymonds (15/28) {Internet Archive}
(1867 - 1872) **George MacDonald - The Seaboard Parish - Annals Of A Quiet Neighbourhood (1/3) {ManyBooks}
(1893 - 1915) **Kate Douglas Wiggins - Penelope - Penelope's Postscripts (4/4)
(1894 - 1898) **Anthony Hope - Ruritania - Rupert Of Hentzau (3/3)
(1898 - 1918) **Arnold Bennett - Five Towns - Tales Of The Five Towns (3/11) {Fisher storage / Project Gutenberg / Internet Archive}

(1901 - 1919) **Carolyn Wells - Patty Fairfield - Patty And Azalea (17/17)
(1901 - 1927) **George Barr McCutcheon - Graustark - Beverly Of Graustark (2/6) {Project Gutenberg}
(1906 - 1930) **John Galsworthy - The Forsyte Saga - The Silver Spoon (8/12) {Sutherland stack / fadedpage.com}
(1907 - 1912) **Carolyn Wells - Marjorie - Marjorie's Vacation (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1908 - 1924) **Margaret Penrose - Dorothy Dale - Dorothy Dale: A Girl Of Today (1/13) {ManyBooks}
(1909 - 1912) **Emerson Hough - Western Trilogy - 54-40 Or Fight (1/3) {Project Gutenberg}
(1910 - 1931) Grace S. Richmond - Red Pepper Burns - Red Pepper Returns (6/6)
(1910 - 1933) Jeffery Farnol - The Vibarts - The Way Beyond (3/3) {Fisher Library storage / fadedpage.com}

(1911 - 1937) Mary Roberts Rinehart - Letitia Carberry - Tish Marches On (5/5)
(1911 - 1919) **Alfred Bishop Mason - Tom Strong - Tom Strong, Lincoln's Scout (5/5)
(1913 - 1934) *Alice B. Emerson - Ruth Fielding - Ruth Fielding In The Far North (20/30) {expensive}
(1916 - 1941) John Buchan - Edward Leithen - Sick Heart River (5/5)
(1915 - 1923) **Booth Tarkington - Growth - The Magnificent Ambersons (2/3) {Project Gutenberg / Fisher Library / Kindle}
(1917 - 1929) **Henry Handel Richardson - Dr Richard Mahony - Australia Felix (1/3) {Fisher Library / Kindle}

(1920 - 1939) E. F. Benson - Mapp And Lucia - Trouble For Lucia (6/6)
(1920 - 1952) William McFee - Spenlove - The Adopted - (7/7)
(1920 - 1932) *Alice B. Emerson - Betty Gordon - Betty Gordon At Bramble Farm (1/15) {ManyBooks}
(1923 - 1931) *Agnes Miller - The Linger-Nots - The Linger-Nots And The Secret Maze (5/5) {unavailable}
(1924 - 1928) **Ford Madox Ford - Parade's End - No More Parades (2/4) {ebook}
(1926 - 1936) *Margery Lawrence - The Round Table - Nights Of The Round Table (1/2) {Kindle}
(1927 - 1960) **Mazo de la Roche - Jalna - Jalna (1/16) {State Library NSW, JFR / fadedpage.com}

(1928 - ????) Trygve Lund - Weston of the Royal North-West Mounted Police - The Vanished Prospector (6/9) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1931) *Ernest Raymond - Once In England - A Family That Was (1/3) {State Library NSW, interlibrary loan}

(1930 - 1932) Hugh Walpole - The Herries Chronicles - Vanessa (4/4)
(1930 - 1932) Faith Baldwin - The Girls Of Divine Corners - Myra: A Story Of Divine Corners (4/4)
(1930 - 1940) E. M. Delafield - The Provincial Lady - The Provincial Lady In Wartime (4/4)

(1931 - 1951) Olive Higgins Prouty - The Vale Novels - Fabia (5/5)
(1931 - 1934) T. S. Stribling - The Vaiden Trilogy - The Store (2/3) {Internet Archive / academic loan / State Library, held}
(1931 - 1935) Pearl S. Buck - The House Of Earth - A House Divided (3/3)
(1932 - 1932) Lizette M. Edholm - The Merriweather Girls - The Merriweather Girls At Good Old Rockhill (4/4) {HathiTrust}
(1932 - 1952) D. E. Stevenson - Mrs Tim - Mrs Tim Flies Home (5/5) {interlibrary loan}

(1933 - 1970) Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richlieu - The Forbidden Territory (1/11) {Fisher Library}
(1934 - 1936) Storm Jameson - The Mirror In Darkness - Company Parade (1/3) {Fisher Library}
(1934 - 1968) Dennis Wheatley - Gregory Sallust - Black August (1/11) {interlibrary loan / omnibus}
(1936 - 1952) Helen Dore Boylston - Sue Barton - Sue Barton, Student Nurse (1/7) {interlibrary loan}

(1947 - 1974) Dennis Wheatley - Roger Brook - The Launching Of Roger Brook (1/12) {Fisher Library storage}
(1948 - 1971) E. V. Timms - The Gubbys - Forever To Remain (1/12) {Fisher Library / interlibrary loan}
(1953 - 1960) Dennis Wheatley - Molly Fountain and Colonel Verney - To The Devil A Daughter (1/2) {Fisher Library storage}
(1955 - 1956) D. E. Stevenson - The Ayrton Family - Summerhills (2/2) {interlibrary loan}

*** Incompletely available series
** Series complete pre-1931
* Present status pre-1931

Unavailable series works:

John Rhode - Dr Priestley
The Hanging Woman (#11)

Miles Burton - Desmond Merrion / Inspector Arnold
>everything from #2 - #11 inclusive

Louis Tracy - Winter and Furneaux
The Park Lane Mystery (#6)

Moray Dalton - Inspector Collier
The Harvest Of Tares (#4)

David Sharp - Professor Fielding
When No Man Pursueth (#1)

Francis D. Grierson - Inspector Sims and Professor Wells
The Double Thumb (#3)

Roger Scarlett - Inspector Kane {NB: Now available in paperback, but expensive}
Murder Among The Angells (#4)
In The First Degree (#5)

Charles J. Dutton - Harley Manners
The Shadow Of Evil (#2)

Alfred Bishop Mason - Tom Strong
Tom Strong, Boy-Captain (#2)
Tom Strong, Junior (#3)
Tom Strong, Third (#4)

Roland Daniel - Wu Fang
The Society Of The Spiders (#1)

Agnes Miller - The Linger-Nots
The Linger-Nots And The Secret Maze (#5)

Books currently on loan:

      

Reading projects:

Blog:

        

        

Other projects:

        

        

Group read news:

The group read of Anthony Trollope's Orley Farm is currently underway.

Our next scheduled project is the 'Carlingford' books of Margaret Oliphant, though as yet not firm decision has been made about when this might happen, or what format it might take given the mixture of shorter and longer works. However, it is likely we will make a start in April.

Ruminations:

As mentioned on the previous thread, my ILL of James A. Michener's The Source has finally turned up and is waiting for collection. (I was going to pick it up today but the weather is miserable, and it will have to wait until tomorrow).

In the middle of the month is exactly when I did *not* want it to turn up, as it complicates all planning. I can probably get it done this month if I put everything else aside, although this messes up the rest of what I intended. Putting it off is appealing, but this will have to wait until I get my hands on it and see what library it came from and whether they allow renewals for ILLs (some will, some won't).

If so...I'm tempted to have a low-key reading month in March and focus on catching up everything up else.

So much catching up...

(This is partly because I got distracted onto something else, see below, eventually.)

Anyway...hopefully a fresh new thread will help to get me moving.

I guess that will do.

C'mon in...those of you who haven't already... :D

Hope I am not intruding too soon to wish you a happy new thread, Liz.

Sand cats . . . kitten-like, indeed! Happy new thread!

Happy new thread, Liz. Those sand cats are pretty darn cute.

>1 lyzard: My very own cat species - very cute kittens!

Welcome, everyone!

>21 PaulCranswick:

Certainly not, that's why I get those hold numbers in there! :D

>22 NinieB:

Hi, Ninie - thank you!

>23 MickyFine:

Thanks so much for visiting, Micky! Glad you like them. :)

>24 SandDune:

Ha! - yes, just for you, Rhian.

Happy new thread, Liz.
As ever, in awe of your organisation & dedication.

>26 Helenliz:

Thanks, Helen! I don't know about 'organisation' but I'll accept 'dedication'. :)

Finished Lost Boy Lost Girl for TIOLI #15.

Now reading Call For The Dead by John le Carré.

Meanwhile---

I have been distracted by reviewing here at least partly because I've been reviewing over at my film-blog:

Lake Mungo (2008)

After the accidental drowning death of a teenage girl, her family begins to experience strange events...

If you like your horror movies creepy rather than violent, this low-key Australian ghost story might be for you.

Happy new thread, Liz!

>1 lyzard: You found some adorable pictures. And made me search the web for more pictures of sand cats :-)

>28 lyzard: And you are reading a book I have read last year! ;-)

Happy new one!

Happy new thread!

>30 FAMeulstee:

Thank you!

Oh, cool, I finished it last night. :)

>31 figsfromthistle:

Thanks, Anita!

>32 drneutron:

Thanks, Jim!

Ah, well. At least they had the decency to send a paperback this time:


  



"A novel", is it? Could have sworn it was an encyclopaedia... :(

>34 lyzard: Hahaha, Michener didn't really do novellas too well.

So the question now is do I tackle it immediately and write off the rest of February, or put it off and make it part of a relatively quiet March?

I'm tending to the latter, particularly since I've been given quite a generous ILL period.

Of course, that means trying to reorganise my plans for immediate reads. Hmm...

>35 PaulCranswick:

:P

I guess American readers felt that were getting an appropriate amount of bang for their reading buck. :D

ETA: Of course, if I put it off, it'll give me the chance to read something Victoriana-ish this month, right??

>36 lyzard: Closer to Easter better, Liz. Victoriana is more your bag methinks.

>38 PaulCranswick:

Doing it this way I have a couple of other books I want to get through first, but I will definitely see you there! :)

Finished Call For The Dead for TIOLI #7.

Now reading 813 by Maurice Leblanc.

>34 lyzard: I may have actually cheered out loud at the sight of this - I've been following The Source Saga here eagerly...

>41 scaifea:

Sadist! :D

Those sand dune cats are the quintessential feline — very cute face that disguises the fact that they are bloodthirsty killers.

>34 lyzard: Yikes. I just checked my library's copy, which is almost certainly the copy I will read. Nine hundred and nine pages. That's almost two Ships of Fools.

>43 rosalita:

I have another species in mind for which that's even more the case, though I'll mix them up a bit through the year.

>44 swynn:

1080 pages here: the most positive thing I can come up with is 'My font is slightly bigger than yours'. :D

>45 lyzard: More than two Ships of Fools. I see some copies of The Source include a bonus excerpt from Hawaii. Maybe that accounts for a few pages? Or eighty?

>45 lyzard: Liz, it’s ALL THE CATS. They are all stone killers masquerading as cuddle bunnies. Wake up, sheeple!

:-D

>46 swynn:

...because of course what people would have wanted most at that point was MORE MICHENER.

{checks} Nope, 1080 pages straight.

>47 rosalita:

Yeah, but we take that sort of thing for granted here. There's not one of our native mammals that doesn't look adorable---or that can't or won't do you if it gets the chance! :D

(Okay, maybe the quokka...)

>48 lyzard: But it's Michener, so it will be easy reading. Not that I ever read The Source, but that was my experience with several of his books.

Isn't a platypus a mammal?

>49 NinieB:

Well, that's reassuring, thanks!

>50 NinieB:

Platypuses are venomous. :)

>48 lyzard: *looks up pictures about quokkas*

OK, they are utterly adorable. And now I know about another animal whose continued existence seems to be hanging in the balance. SAVE THE QUOKKA!

>52 rosalita:

The problem with the quokka is that it is restricted to such a tiny geographical area. But they're such a perfect tourist attraction that they are being looked after.

>48 lyzard: So now you made me search the web for more pictures of quokkas :-)
Never heard of them before, they look very adorable.

Oh, quokka talk! They *are* the cutest. When I'm having a bad day (or the world decides it's going to remind me of how terrible it is), I often turn to pics/videos of cute animals as a respite. Kittens (do I dare say that here) is always a go-to, as are bunnies, alpacas, pandas and quokkas.

>55 PawsforThought: I saw a video of a panda "helping" his keeper tidy up his enclosure on Twitter the other day, and it was adorable. I may have watched it several times. :-)

Happy New Thread, Liz. Cool photos of the sand cats up top. Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— - love it!

Hmm. Perhaps I need to think of a reason to post quokka pics here too? How about---whenever I manage to catch up my reviewing?

(In which case you won't be seeing one legitimately for a while, sigh...)

But anyhoo---just in case anyone doesn't know what we're talking about---

>54 FAMeulstee:

"Adorable" hardly covers it! :D

>55 PawsforThought:

As do all sensible people. Yes, indeed: kittens, bunnies, alpacas, pandas, quokkas---and of course SLOTHS!!!!

>57 jnwelch:

Hi, Joe - thanks! :)

I had to google for Quokka as well. What a cheery looking little creature.

>59 lyzard: I don't know if I dare say it on this thread but I find sloths really creepy and will immediately scroll on/click away/change channel if I see one.

>61 PawsforThought:

..................................*speechless*..................................

THOU ART BANISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hmm.

Well...

I guess I don't get enough visitors here to banish anyone; so I'll just splutter to myself a bit more...

I somehow did not get your 2021 thread starred, but now I've found you! I saw you're leading a group read of Orley Farm. I'm going to consider a late jump in. You know I love those Trollope group reads!

>62 lyzard: It's the weird nose and the staring eyes and THOSE CLAWS!

I'll just go hide behind one of the alpacas...

>63 japaul22:

Welcome here and welcome there, it is delightful to have you both places, Jennifer! :)

>64 PawsforThought:

...*still spluttering a bit*...

Well, I do love alpacas...

Finished 813 for TIOLI #10.

Now reading Blanche On The Lam by Barbara Neely.

Finished Ship of Fools and read your comments. We had similar takes. The quality of the prose was a pleasant surprise for me, but it wasn't enough to balance the unpleasant characters and plotless narrative. You give Dr. Schumann more credit than I do -- for me the only sympathetic characters were the dog and the poor soul who rescued him. And I suspect I'd have disliked the rescuer if he'd had more lines.

>67 swynn:

Well OBVIOUSLY the dog. :D

That "accident" was always waiting to happen and I'm afraid I was perfectly content with the outcome...

If the book had been written when she started it there would have been more point to it but as it was it just seemed like unnecessary wallowing.

Finished Blanche On The Lam for TIOLI #1.

Now reading The Autobiography Of Mark Rutherford by William Hale White.

So, Liz, I finished Adventures of Susan Hopley a few days ago. I had a good time reading it, and look forward to moving on to Men And Women; or, Manorial Rights at some point. While it's not exactly a mystery (I mean, is anyone really wondering whodunnit?) it's really very close. At least some bestsellers are worth reading 180 years later!

Where might I find your review?

Oh, I'm so glad you liked it! No, it isn't really a mystery, but you can see the forerunner elements of more modern crime writing. On the other hand, though it's buried in the additional subplots of any 19th century three-volume novel, there's a thoroughly modern detective story at the heart of Men And Women: all that's lacking is an actual detective figure.

My review is here, thank you for asking! :)

>71 lyzard: Great review: "We see all sorts of victimisation over the course of the narrative . . . ." Yes, thank you for pointing that out. And I loved how prominent the women were in the narrative. I read an article or book chapter (several, so not sure which) noting that Crowe's men are all lacking in some way. It's not that I liked the book because they are lacking, but instead because the women are strong. My last thought is that Julia's family's financial problems really gave me chills because it made so clear that there was no safety net protecting against poverty.

>73 lyzard:

Thanks! :)

I don't know that they're lacking, just not the focus.

And the Julia subplot really resonates placed against the novel's picture of working-class people looking out for one another because no-one else will.

I didn't say it correctly. Here's the passage I was thinking of:

"Throughout her novels, Crowe presents strong heroines and weak or villainous men.
"Larken contends that in Crowe’s work, ‘masculinity is represented,
with a few exceptions, by murderers, thieves, false impersonators, customs-dodgers, seducers and other unscrupulous rogues, scoundrels and crooks’ (Larken 101)....
"This type of flashy masculinity in Crowe’s work often presents a superficial attractiveness which hides vice and villainy."

--Ruth Heholt, "'Powerful beyond All Question': Catherine Crowe's Novels of the 1840s," British Women’s Writing from Brontë to Bloomsbury, Volume 1.

>74 NinieB:

I don't know that I agree with that either, rather I think she was showing the incredible range of dangers that the world posed for unprotected young women.

>75 lyzard: And protection was illusory in some instances.

>76 NinieB:

Too true. :(

Finished The Autobiography Of Mark Rutherford for TIOLI #16.

Now reading---

---ahem---

The Secret History of the Four Last Monarchs of Great Britain, viz., James I, Charles I, Charles II, James II to which is added, an appendix containing the later reign of James the Second, from the time of his abdication of England to this present January, 1691, with particular remarks on his private actions in Ireland by "R. B." (Nathaniel Crouch)

Coincidentally, I just saw this tweet, regarding the evolution of the title page over the years: https://twitter.com/LyppardBooks/status/1343166520684376064

>79 rosalita:

Oh, brilliant, thank you!

It's something I've been noting at my blog---the shifting language of titles and particularly the move from calling a work a 'history' to calling it a 'novel', as fiction became more socially acceptable.

Meanwhile - since the above is only available online and in teeny font - also reading The Adventuress by Arthur B. Reeve.

I've been stalled for ages on the Craig Kennedy series, firstly because I became aware that the "real" series was progressively interwoven with Reeve's novelisations of his screenplays for several film serials featuring Kennedy (and which have him behaving completely out of book-character, but anyhoo), and secondly because I couldn't get hold of a copy of The Adventuress.

However, having sorted out the order to my own satisfaction, and found online access to the latter, I'd like to make some steady progress through this series.

Copying this here from my earlier research as a note to myself and a reminder to keep an eye on the ordering of the series page:

#1: The Silent Bullet (1910)
#2: The Poisoned Pen (1911)
#3: The Dream Doctor (1914)
#4: The War Terror (1915)
#5: Gold Of The Gods (1915) (expansion of a short story that later appeared in The Treasure Train)
#6: The Exploits Of Elaine (1915) (novelisation of the screenplay for the 1914 serial, The Exploits Of Elaine)
#7: The Social Gangster (1916)
#8: The Ear In The Wall (1916)
#9: The Romance Of Elaine (novelisation adapted from the screenplays of The New Exploits Of Elaine (1915) and The Romance Of Elaine (1916); UK variant: The Triumph Of Elaine, which is The Romance Of Elaine plus five further chapters)
#10: The Treasure Train (1917)
#11: The Adventuress (1917)
#12: The Panama Plot (1918)
#13: The Soul Scar (1919)
#14: The Film Mystery (1921)
#15: Craig Kennedy Listens In (1923)
#16: Atavar, The Dream Dancer (1924)
#17: The Fourteen Points (1925)
#18: Craig Kennedy On The Farm (1925)
#19: The Radio Detective (1926) (novelisation of the screenplay for the 1926 serial, The Radio Detective)
#20: Pandora (1926)
#21: The Kidnap Club (1932)
#22: The Clutching Hand (1934) (which reworks part of the story of The Exploits Of Elaine, in which the master-criminal with a secret identity is also known as "The Clutching Hand"; later filmed as the 1936 sound serial, The Clutching Hand)
#23: Enter Craig Kennedy (1935)
#24: The Stars Scream Murder (1936)

Hi Liz, Are you likely to get to Simon the Coldheart in the next few days? I know the idea was to have a shared read. He's in the last category I need for a sweeplette. I can sub him for something else if you're not going to get to him in February. Let me know, I'll start him or something else tonight. (That's UK time tonight).

Sorry, Helen! - I've had unexpected trouble getting hold of a copy. I can now, though, so please say whether you would prefer to go ahead or leave it. I can work with it either way so whichever call you make is fine with me.

Let's leave him to March. Give me a shout when you're ready. >:-)

>85 Helenliz:

No worries. Just as soon as I've got through The Source... :D

>86 lyzard: so just a couple of days then? >;-)

>87 Helenliz:

:P

Finished The Adventuress for TIOLI #11.

Still reading The Secret History Of The Four Last Monarchs Of Great Britain.

Finished The Secret History Of The Four Last Monarchs Of Great Britain for TIOLI #8.

And now, because I really can't put this off any longer---

Now reading The Source by James A. Michener.

No writing around here (as, ahem, you might have noticed) but I have managed a brief blog-post about the appendix to my previous read---that only, because I had previously dealt with the relevant parts of the main text.

Appendix to The Secret History Of The Four Last Monarchs Of Great Britain

No-one at all is obliged to read this one! - though there's bit of Irish history for anyone who might be interested in that.

And though it's not much, I'm allowing myself this---

>91 lyzard: is that real? Like a lemur, maybe?

>92 NinieB:

It's a tarsier, a small primate found across south-east Asia. They're not actually related to lemurs (I believe they're more closely related to us!), but I use them for blogging that doesn't really deserve a startled lemur. :D

>91 lyzard: He's a cute little fella, anyway!

>91 lyzard: Adorable!

>94 rosalita:, >95 Matke:

Note to self: more blogging = more tarsiers = more visitors! :D

>91 lyzard: squeee!

>97 Helenliz:

:D

>96 lyzard: It's one of those, whatchamacallit, positive feedback loops!

Publication date: 1961
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: George Smiley #1
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (heard about in January)

Call For The Dead - After receiving an anonymous letter accusing operative Samuel Fennan of Communist sympathies, George Smiley conducts a routine and rather informal security check, and comes away satisfied. The next day, however, Fennan is found dead, an apparent suicide---a letter left for his superiors at the Foreign Office accusing Smiley of doubting his loyalty and intending to ruin his career. Hauled over the coals by his own slippery superior, Maston, who is under pressure from the government, Smiley realises he will end up paying the price unless he can find some other explanation for Fennan's death. Reluctantly, he interviews Fennan's widow, Elsa, and learns little that can help---except for one tiny point: why would a man planning to kill himself place a wake-up call first...? Published in 1961, and drawing upon his own experiences in MI5 and MI6, John le Carré's first novel introduces both unlikely spy, George Smiley, and the murky, ambiguous, morally compromised world of Cold War espionage: the novel turning on reaction to the re-arming of West Germany. However, Call For The Dead is as much a police-procedural mystery as an espionage thriller, with Smiley working in conjunction with Inspector Mendel of the Special Branch as well as his own Ministry of Defence colleague, Peter Guillam, as he attempts to prove that Samuel Fennan did not kill himself at all, but was murdered. In this, Smiley is not only protecting his own reputation - he knows Maston will make him the fall-guy if necessary - but, more urgently, trying to determine whether Fennan really was a double agent, murdered because of the perceived threat of Smiley's security check; and if so, what information he may have been passing on, and for how long. As he pursues his investigation, Smiley gets unwelcome confirmation of his theory when he is viciously, almost fatally attacked... Though a first work, Call For The Dead features what would become le Carré's trademark terse prose: in fact, if anything he is a little too terse here, occasionally making it difficult for the reader to join the dots of his plot. He must have realised this himself, as he compensates via a series of "reports", in which Smiley recapitulates his case---and which give the novel a tendency to tell-not-show. However, this is still a remarkably satisfying work, offering not only a twisty mystery, but filling in Smiley's personal and professional background---his education, failed marriage, and his time as an operative in post-war Germany. And it is, as Smiley finally realises, a connection made during that phase of his life that has come back to haunt him...

    What followed? Nothing, unless...
    Yes, that was the only possible conclusion: unless whoever saw them together recognised not only Fennan but Smiley as well, and was violently opposed to their association.
    Why? In what way was Smiley dangerous? His eyes suddenly opened very wide. Of course - in one way, and one way only - as a security officer.
    He put down his pencil.
    And so whoever killed Sam Fennan was anxious that he should not talk to a security officer. Someone in the Foreign Office, perhaps. But essentially someone who knew Smiley too. Someone Fennan had known at Oxford, known as a communist, someone who feared exposure, who thought that Fennan would talk, had talked already, perhaps? And if he had talked already then of course Smiley would have to be killed - killed quickly before he could put in his report.
    That would explain the murder of Fennan and the assault on Smiley. It made some sense, but not much. He had built a card-house as high as it would go, and he still had cards in his hand. What about Elsa, her lies, her complicity, her fear? What about the car and the eight-thirty call? What about the anonymous letter?

>99 rosalita:

I need to keep that in mind, somehow. Maybe a picture of a tarsier stuck to the corner of my screen?? :D

>93 lyzard: I don't remember tarsiers being mentioned in Physical Anthropology way back when. Wonder how big he is? Answer: 10-25 centimeters for head and body, not counting tail.

Wikipedia includes the fun factoid: "each eyeball is approximately 16 millimetres (0.63 in) in diameter and is as large as, or in some cases larger than, its entire brain." Just imagine what we would look like . . .

>100 lyzard: Long time since I read that one but the cover you had was much better than the one I remember mine having.

>102 NinieB:

In some cases our eyes could be the same size and still get the job done. :D

>103 PaulCranswick:

That's the most recent Penguin re-release. It's a good cover because it's fitting but you don't understand it until you've finished the book. :)

And because my ongoing library restrictions weren't frustrating enough...

Today I found out that academic loan fees (that is, the fee to get an ILL item from a university or similar) have gone through the roof.

The fee for borrowing such a book is now $28.50, up from $16.50, on top of the $5.20 charged by my library to place the request.

This was not a service I used often, for obvious reasons, but now it looks like I won't be using it at all. :(

>105 lyzard: When you say "my library" . . . is this a public library? I hate to see public libraries feeling the need to charge for ILL.

>106 NinieB:

Yes, this is the one thing that local libraries do charge for, and it's chiefly to offset our spiralling postal costs. If an ILL is coming from anywhere within the city there is a library-to-library courier system which is free, but for anywhere else books reach the base library by normal post and that can be ridiculously expensive.

That said, this is something that varies from library system to library system (ours are administered at the local government level), what they charge and if they charge. I'm unlucky in that my local library has a permanent request fee.

It's annoying but when you consider it will get you a book from Perth or Hobart or Darwin for $5.00, it isn't really so bad. :)

Publication date: 1917
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Craig Kennedy #11
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (MARDIGRAS rolling challenge)

The Adventuress - When Marshall Maddox, head of Maddox Munitions, is found dead in the waters off Westport Bay, on Long Island, Craig Kennedy is consulted by Maxwell Hastings, his lawyer. Hastings explains that, the night before, Maddox's yacht had been the site of a contentious family meeting, in which control of the business had been discussed. He also reveals that Maddox Munitions has developed an electronic device called the telautomaton, which has the potential to revolutionise warfare. Kennedy's investigation determines that, far from drowning, Maddox was murdered by means of a poison gas bomb tossed into his cabin, his body then being thrown overboard to mimic an accident or suicide. Could one or more of his relatives be responsible? - or had Maddox become the target of international espionage? And what role was played in his death by the alluring Mexican dancer known only as Paquita...? In my opinion, Arthur B. Reeve's Craig Kennedy series works better in short-story format than as novels, and The Adventuress supports that argument. This is a poorly written and plotted entry, as much concerned with the romantic travails of the Maddox family as with the theft of a device that could turn the war, and with too much of the narrative consisting either of Person B following Person A while being followed by Person C, or sidekick / narrator Walter Jameson's endless speculation about the case (in true sidekick style, he never really understands anything). Given that this was WWI, I suppose we have to forgive the novel's "suspicious foreigners" attitude, but it gets a bit teeth-clenchy when the characters in question are reduced to "the little Mexican dancer" and "the Japanese"; though evidently Reeve didn't know the term "Latino": poor Sanchez just gets to be "sallow-faced". As for the science upon which this series rests, except for the gas-bomb nearly all of it concerns electronics - recording devices, surveillance, wire-tapping - while for better or worse, the remote-control war-machine, the telautomaton, put me in mind of a couple of Star Trek episodes. The most interesting thing here is the novel's critical attitude towards the Maddoxes profiting - or profiteering - from munitions (though we gather they should be handing things over to the government, not not doing it in the first place). On the other hand, the ending is frustratingly abrupt, telling us whodunit but without any explanation of how. Though The Adventuress initially appears to be a spy thriller, eventually it becomes clear that this is really about the family business---with suspicion focusing upon the surviving Maddoxes: Marshall's angry ex-wife, Irene; his rackety younger brother, Shelby; his sister and brother-in-law, Frances and Johnson Walcott; and Walcott's sister, Winifred. And at all times, matters are complicated by the involvement of Paquita, who may have been dividing her favours between Marshall and Shelby; but was her interest romantic, or financial, or something much darker...?

    Devilishly, while the light-bombs flared, the telautomaton sped relentlessly toward its mark.
    We strained our eyes at the Sybarite. Would they never awake to their danger? Was the wireless operator asleep or off duty? Would our own operator be unable to warn them in time?
    Then we looked back to the deadly new weapon of modem war science. Nothing now could stop it.
    Kennedy was putting every inch of speed into the boat which he had commandeered.
    “As a race it’s hopeless,” he gritted, bending ahead over the wheel as if the boat were a thing that could be urged on. “What they are doing is to use the Hertzian waves to actuate relays on the torpedo. The wireless carries impulses so tuned that they release power carried by the machine itself. The thing that has kept the telautomaton back while wireless telegraphy has gone ahead so fast is that in wireless we have been able to discard coherers and relays and use detectors and microphones in their places. But in telautomatics you have to keep the coherer. That has been the barrier. The coherer until recently has been spasmodic, until we got the mercury steel disk coherer---and now this one. See how she works---if only it could be working for us instead of against us!”
    On sped the destroyer. It was now only a matter of seconds when it would be directed squarely at the yacht...

>107 lyzard: It's pretty much exactly the same in the US. Where I live now the public library does ILL for free, but in my previous location there was a $10 charge.

>107 lyzard: >109 NinieB:

My (tiny) local library does not have a mandatory charge but they will put a slip in the book saying how much it cost (it was $2 and change last time I used ILL) and saying they welcome donations to cover the cost. I usually just give them $5 because I so seldom use ILL but I really appreciate our little library making it available for free to everyone.

Dropping by to wish you a lovely weekend, Liz.

Breezing through, Liz. Your threads are always fascinating to me. So much talk about old, old books, especially mysteries; they’re just right.

How are you doing with The Source? I read it perhaps three times over the years and enjoyed it. Michener is distinctly middlebrow, but most of the time so am I.

The Source:

Its final size was difficult to comprehend: the Torah upon which it was built was brief; the Mishna was many times as long; the Gemara was much longer than the Mishna; and the commentaries of Maimonides and the rest were in turn much longer than the Gemara, the Mishna and the Torah together. The Torah consisted of five books, the Talmud of 523. The Torah could be printed in two hundred and fifty pages, but the finished Talmud required twenty-two volumes...

---and then God created JAMES A. MICHENER.

>112 Matke:

That's on page 544 which perhaps tells you how I'm going. :D

Okay, I guess---it's relatively easy to read and certainly interesting---but there's just SO MUCH OF IT. It's been a week and I'm just about 60% through.

Its final size was difficult to comprehend...

Yes, I'm going to be adopting THAT line in future!

Meanwhile---sorry!

>110 rosalita:

I haven't heard of a library doing that before, I hope people (other than you of course!) do the right thing.

>111 PaulCranswick:

Hi, Paul; thanks! :)

>112 Matke:

Thanks for dropping in, Gail! I'm glad you find something interesting here. :)

>113 lyzard: *snort* Oh dear.

>116 Helenliz:

"Just a few more days for to tote the weary lo-oa-ad..."

>117 lyzard: Hang in there, Liz! Just think how good you'll feel when it's done.

I don't know about "good" - I read the last two hundred pages over three and a half hours last night, finishing at one o'clock this morning - but anyway---

Finished The Source for TIOLI #10

>119 lyzard: Whew!

>119 lyzard: Congrats on climbing that mountain, Liz!

>119 lyzard: See? easy to read (aside from the physical weight and heft)!

Well done! Something a little lighter to follow?

>120 rosalita:, >121 swynn:, >122 NinieB:, >123 Helenliz:

Thank you, everyone!

I don't want to give the impression that it isn't good or I didn't enjoy it; on the contrary, really; but its length, and the density of the prose - it's not exactly full of light, chatty conversations - gave a wading-through-molasses feel to the reading experience. (I usually read at about 60 pages per minute hour, I was closer to 40 with this.)

>122 NinieB:

:P

>123 Helenliz:

Something VERY much lighter, I should think!

Hmm. Maybe something about parrots. And speech impediments...

>124 lyzard:

Maybe something about parrots. And speech impediments...

*perks up ears*

>124 lyzard: 60 pages per minute?! Damn! ;)

Hi, Micky! Yeah, about 50-60 for a normal novel with a mix of dialogue and description.

This one went more at my usual non-fiction pace of 30-40. :)

>125 rosalita:

So, yes:

Now reading The Mystery Of The Stuttering Parrot by Robert Arthur Jr.

A book that doesn't hurt my wrists!

A book I can read in the bath!!

A book that doesn't give me semi-permanent lines across my abdomen from having to rest it there while I'm reading in bed!!!

It's the little things. :)

>127 lyzard: I *think* Micky is questioning your time period, not your page count. 60 pages per hour is believable, 60 pages per minute, as post >124 lyzard:, would blow my little tiny mind.

>128 lyzard: I thought Treasure Island was a bit too obvious for you! How mysterious is the parrot?

>126 MickyFine:, >129 Helenliz:

AHH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!! Did I say that!? Oopsie!

Yes, hour, obviously!

What can I say? - I'll have to add 'A book that didn't damage my brain' to >128 lyzard:. :D

Anyhoo---

Finished The Mystery Of The Stuttering Parrot---with luck for TIOLI #13, but more likely to end up in #8.

Now reading Gray Dusk by Octavus Roy Cohen.

>130 lyzard: I confess my sympathy for your tackling the Michener diminished considerably when I imagined it taking you half an hour instead of your expected fifteenish minutes.

>132 swynn:

:D

Fourteen days not fourteen minutes, I swear!

>130 lyzard: If it's any comfort, Liz, I totally missed the minute thing until Helen pointed it out.

*snork!*

I noticed the minute thing, but for a while it seemed that everyone else was taking it in stride and so I was having some serious thoughts of self-inadequacy going: "Is that really normal? Am I actually the slowest reader in the world, then? Is there something wrong with me?!"

So, WHEW.

>135 scaifea: Ha! Same here.

By the by, Liz, I got my daily BookBub email about bargain ebooks here in the US and — would you believe it? — The Source is now available for the low, low price of $2.99. I have so far successfully resisted the urge ...

>134 NinieB:, >135 scaifea:, >136 rosalita:

And the best part is, I totally undermined my own whining! - serves me right! :D

>137 rosalita:

I'm torn between urging you to run and not wanting to suffer alone...

>137 rosalita: I picked it up. Thanks Julia!

>139 swynn: Hey, you're welcome, Steve!

>139 swynn:, >140 rosalita:

Brave souls! - or soul, anyway. :D

Finished Gray Dusk for TIOLI #17.

Now reading Mr Jelly's Business by Arthur Upfield.

YES!!!!

I finally got my wish of a trash novel at #1---whoo!! :D

Meanwhile - to go from one end of the female author spectrum to the other - I have been debating how to proceed with Margaret Oliphant's 'Carlingford Chronicles', which is / are next up in the Virago reading project.

I gather that the series starts with three shortish works, The Executor, The Rector and The Doctor's Family, before moving on to the actual novels.

So my thought at the moment is to do The Executor and The Rector next month, and The Doctor's Family (the longest of the three) in May.

I will re-post this on the Virago threads, but if you are thinking of joining in for this, please post here and let me know, and whether this schedule would suit you.

>144 lyzard: Virago on my shelf waiting to be read . . . so yes! Schedule seems fine.

>144 lyzard: I'm not sure if "The Executor" is included in the Virago edition.

All three works are in the Oxford World's Classics edition: The Doctor's Family and other stories.

>144 lyzard: And yes, I'll join in.

>146 kac522: The Executor is available online. I may have shared a link with Liz when this came up awhile back.

ETA: It's in Project Gutenberg: http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/59759

>145 NinieB:, >147 kac522:

Excellent!

>146 kac522:

No, it isn't, but information suggests it's the correct place to start with this series. :)

Thanks for that information, I hadn't been able to find a list of contents.

>148 NinieB:

Yes, there shouldn't be any problem about access.

Publication date: 2019
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Read for: TIOLI (starts with a fire)

Miracle Creek - Fire rips through a hyperbaric oxygenation chamber situated in rural Virginia, killing a young boy and a parent inside, and injuring two people outside. It is soon evident that the fire was no accident... A year later, Elizabeth Ward is tried for the murders of her eight-year-old autistic son, Henry, and Kitt Kozlowski, the parent of another boy undergoing hyperbaric treatment for autism. Feelings run high as the court case begins, and for most people there is little doubt about Elizabeth's guilt; but as the witnesses testify, it becomes clear that the question of "guilt" is more complicated than anyone realised... Though it may be classified as a "courtroom drama", Angie Kim's debut novel uses this framework to address a range of serious personal and social issues, most prominently the immigrant experience and the demands and sacrifices involved in caring for a special-needs child. Miracle Creek unfolds as a series of shifting narratives, with the story told from the perspective of the various people involved in the tragedy---their internal reflections becoming increasingly disconnected from their testimony to police and, finally, on the stand. The Korean-American Kim draws heavily upon her own experiences as the child of immigrants in her depiction of Young and Pak Yoo who, in attempting to provide a better life for their teenage daughter, have dislocated their family in a way that may never be repaired. Meh-hee - now known as Mary - struggles with her immigrant status and her feelings of abandonment by her work-focused parents, in addition to the usual teenage miseries; while Young and Pak deal with the reality of having invested everything in their experimental hyperbaric business. Much of the novel is told from the point of view of Young, who says little but sees everything---and who is the first to realise that there is far more to the tragic fire than even its investigators suspect... Miracle Creek's other emphasis is upon the Yoos' younger patients and their parents; and for some readers, its handling of the topic of experimental therapies for autism - and conversely, its depiction of the protestors against those therapies - may be its most contentious aspect. But regardless, the novel's description of the lengths that Elizabeth and Kitt and Teresa Santiago, whose daughter, Rosa, is brain damaged and confined to a wheelchair, go to, in trying to do their best for their children - their bouts of anger and guilt and self-doubt - the perverse competitiveness of their situation: whose child is the "most" challenged? - who is making the "most" sacrifices? - is heartfelt and painful. Did Elizabeth reach the end of her tether and decide to murder her young son? - or did the protestors follow through on their threats of stopping the experimental treatment? Or was it, rather, a sordid matter of insurance fraud? - though Pak Yoo and Mary are both injured as a result of the fire. As the witnesses testify, the only certainty is that everyone involved in the tragedy has something to hide...

    Mary walked to the nearest willow tree and touched the branches that draped almost to the ground. She ran her fingers through, separating them, the way her mother combed her fingers through her hair. She stepped into the veil of willows, feeling the feathery strands gently stroke her face, making the area around her scar feel tingly and tickly.
    Her scar. Her father's useless legs, in a wheelchair. Death of a woman and a boy. The boy's mother on trial for murder, which, if she had nothing to do with the fire, was putting her unjustly through hell. And now, Mary's father being accused of murder. So much pain and destruction, her silence enabling it all. Given everything she now knew, given her suspicions about Janine and the protestors, her rising doubts about Elizabeth's role in the fire, didn't Mary have a duty to come forward, no matter what the consequences?
    Abe said she might testify soon. Maybe that was exactly what she needed. A chance---no, a mandate---to tell the truth. She'd wait one more day. Abe said he'd be presenting the most shocking, incontrovertible proof of Elizabeth's guilt tomorrow. She'd wait to see what that was. And if any doubt remained, if there was the slightest chance that Elizabeth wasn't to blame, she'd stand up in court and tell everything that happened last summer...

>150 lyzard: Well done review, Liz. I enjoyed that one for many of the reasons you cite, particularly getting a look into the Korea-American and autism communities. The characters were nicely complex and it was hard to figure out what the "right" outcome should be.

Unlike, say, The Benevent Treasure, which I've finally finished and await discussion of. At what point did Wentworth give up on trying to strew red herrings across the reader's path and instead just mount a flashing neon arrow pointing directly at the most obvious suspect? Granted, sometimes the motive comes as a surprise but at least the last couple have seemed fairly obvious. I'm not complaining, just observing.

And speaking of Maudie and her creator, I thought you might be interested in this article I came across on the Murder & Mayhem site:

Hidden Gems: Patricia Wentworth's The Case Is Closed

There's that train again!

>151 rosalita:

Thanks! As you know, not my usual ballpark, but it worked out well for my attempts to read some more recent stuff via TIOLI.

Ah, but--- As I said before - and will no doubt say again! - it isn't a mystery, it's a Gothic thriller. It fits exactly with the conversation we were having on your previous thread about classifying books as mysteries or thrillers or suspense novels or whatever, and the criteria we use to do that.

In The Benevent Treasure the focus isn't whodunit, it's the imperiled heroine; it isn't who's doing these things, it's what they're doing and why they're doing it, and can the heroine be saved. So, thriller. The mystery aspects, that is, Maudie trying to find out what really happened to the missing man, are subordinate to that.

There's that train again!

I think it was "There's that train for the first time!", wasn't it?? :D

>152 lyzard: Ah yes, Gothic thriller not mystery. It does make much more sense in that context. Would you say that all of the Miss Silver books could be classified that way, or did she evolve into that style over time? Because my admittedly shaky memory has me thinking the first books were more straightforward mystery-wise, although they do all have that romance-in-peril aspect so maybe I'm just an idiot.

I think it was "There's that train for the first time!", wasn't it?? :D

Now that's a good question! Was that the first time she picked someone (er, a client) on the train? There was the one where the young newlywed heiress whose husband was trying to kill her who met Maud on the train and ended up hiring her, but I can't remember if that one came before or after The Case Is Closed. Oh, who am I kidding? I can't even remember the name of that one!

Edited to add: I just looked at the series list and while I still can't remember the name of the one I mentioned above, I see The Case Is Closed was the second book in the series, so ... yes, the first time!

>153 rosalita:

I think she started out more thriller-y, then became more mystery-y, and now dabbles occasionally in thriller-y stuff again.

Which is to say, in the early books there was more focus on the heroine and the romance (and/or the associated danger), and then as Wentworth reconceived Maud and became more interested in her as a detective, the focus shifted to her.

I'm with you on preferring the "romance" of Maud and Frank. :D

You're thinking of Danger Point, which is...(checks)...the fourth in the series.

>154 lyzard: OK, that makes sense. Thinking about The Grey Mask, it was definitely more thriller-y with its goofy rubber mask and eavesdropping on the bad guys and all.

I was so disappointed that Frank doesn't make an appearance in The Benevent Treasure. Maud didn't need him to solve the mystery, but I'm sure she needed him, ifyouknowwhatImean.

OK, OK, I'll stop now!

>155 rosalita:

If Maud was here she'd either be coughing or giving you THAT LOOK. :D

>156 lyzard: Oh, dear. I wouldn't dare risk the wrath of Maudie! I would quake before THAT LOOK. And I know exactly how that cough would sound — I've either caused it or done it myself too many times. :-D

>157 rosalita:

Caused it, I believe... :D

Finished Mr Jelly's Business for TIOLI #7. And ended up adding The Mystery Of The Stuttering Parrot to TIOLI #15.

But now--- OH NOES!!!!

A while back I came across a missing book - missing in my house, that is: you know how it is! - and what did I do but Put It In A Safe Place So I Would Be Sure To Find It Again.

Sigh...

ETA: OMG it was in only the second safe place I looked!!!!

Now reading Death Comes To Perigord by John Alexander Ferguson.

>158 lyzard: Hey, I resemble that remark!

>159 lyzard: Some good reading in this post!

On another topic--have you read Pageant by G. B. Lancaster? I came across this intriguing comment: "A thoroughly masculine novel of Tasmania written by a clever woman. The pill of history is sugared o'er with the sweet cast of sentiment."

Some good reading and some stupids. :D

I have not! - though I see it's on The List.

Ah, 1933: that explains it; I'm not up to it yet!

>162 lyzard: I have an old library discard, patiently waiting to be read. I'm curious what distinguishes a masculine novel by a woman.

>163 NinieB:

The reviewer only found out afterwards it was written by a woman?

You should always be cautious around authorial initials...

>164 lyzard: One ugly thought that just occurred to me is that she was clever because she made it seem like it was written by a man . . .

>165 NinieB:

A case of someone thinking they're paying a compliment...

Best-selling books in the United States for 1965:

1. The Source by James A. Michener
2. Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman
3. Herzog by Saul Bellow
4. The Looking Glass War by John le Carré
5. The Green Berets by Robin Moore
6. Those Who Love by Irving Stone
7. The Man with the Golden Gun by Ian Fleming
8. Hotel by Arthur Hailey
9. The Ambassador by Morris West
10. Don't Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk

1965 gives us an odd mixture of overlapping themes.

Saul Bellow's 1964 holdover, Herzog, is joined by Herman Wouk's Don't Stop the Carnival, about a New Yorker who responds to his midlife crisis by running off to the Caribbean to manage a hotel, with mostly disastrous results. This in turn is joined by Hotel, the first of Arthur Hailey's multi-plotted potboilers, about the management of a New Orleans hotel fighting to maintain their business' independence and avoid being absorbed into a cookie-cutter chain.

Robin Moore's The Green Berets is about the United States Army Special Forces: Moore trained with the elite soldiers for a year before joining their deployment to Vietnam. The Ambassador, by Morris West, deals with the 1963 Coup d'état in South Vietnam and the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem.

There are dueling espionage novels, fact and fiction: John le Carré's The Looking Glass War deals with the unglamorous reality of Cold War spying, with a British intelligence department attempting to verify a Communist defector's story of Soviet missiles in East Germany. Ian Fleming's The Man with the Golden Gun, his final James Bond novel, finds the agent dealing with Soviet brainwashing before before sent on an assassination mission in the Caribbean.

The anomaly here is Bel Kaufman's Up the Down Staircase, about a young teacher struggling with the realities of an overcrowded inner-city public school.

With the remaining two books, we find American readers picking up their old favourite, historical fiction: Irving Stone's Those Who Love is a biographical novel about John and Amy Adams; while the year's best-seller was James A. Michener's massive account of the history of the Middle East, The Source.

James Albert Michener was born in 1907 and adopted into a Pennsylvania Quaker family: there was later speculation that his adoptive mother was actually his birth mother.

Earning first a Bachelor of Arts degree, then a Masters, Michener taught high-school and college-level English in Pennsylvania and Colorado, before lecturing at Harvard. Eventually he gave up teaching to work in the publishing industry for Macmillan.

Although his Quaker background would have qualified him as a conscientious objector, Michener enlisted in the navy after the bombing of Pearl Harbor: his postings took him all over the Pacific, experiences which fueled his burgeoning writing career. Michener's assignment as a naval historian provided the basis for what became Tales Of The South Pacific. The book was published in 1947, when Michener was forty, and won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize.

Despite this belated start, Michener was incredibly prolific, completing more than two dozen novels and even more works of non-fiction, as well as contributing to various adaptations of his works. Though most of his works were successful, he became best known for his hugely ambitious, sprawling works of historical fiction, which at their most extreme dealt with events unfolding over thousands of years.

But these novels also created controversy, with questions over how much of Michener's legendarily detailed research he did himself, and how much help he actually had.

In addition to his writing, Michener also became involved in politics. After a failed campaign of his own, he served as campaign manager for several Pennsylvania Democrats and at one point was a member of the Electoral College: an experience which prompted his writing of Presidential Lottery: The Reckless Gamble in Our Electoral System, a scathing attack upon the system.

Michener was also a major philanthropist, contributing to range of literary, artistic and educational causes.

Having developed severe kidney disease, Michener underwent four years of dialysis before deciding to stop treatment. He died in Texas in 1997, at the age of ninety.

Publication date: 1965
Genre: Historical fiction
Read for: Best-seller challenge

The Source - James A. Michener's best-selling novel traces the history of religion and culture in the Middle East from pre-monotheistic times to the present (that is, 1964); more specifically, it traces the history of the Jews. Its setting is Makor, a fictional tell situated in modern Israel, once the site of sequential settlements but now long abandoned to the desert. This history poses a dilemma for archaeologists: there is no sign of drinking water in the area, yet it supported human settlements for countless thousands of years; moreover, Makor is Hebrew for "the source"... As a framework for his narrative, Michener uses an archaeological exploration of Makor, overseen jointly by John Cullinane, an Irish-American Catholic; Ilan Eliav, an Israeli Jew; and Jemail Tabari, and Arab. The dig is funded by Paul Zodman, an American businessman, who expects results---and fast. And results there are, even more extraordinary than anyone dreamed: at one end of the tell, the remains of Crusader's castle are unearthed; at the other, artefacts dating back more than 10,000 years... The Source is necessarily a massive novel, over a thousand pages in length; and while it is very well written and in fact a surprisingly easy read, given its scope and ambition, it sheer size and the amount of information presented makes it also something of a struggle; as does some of its subject matter. Using as its basis a series of finds made by the three archaeologists in the present, Michener traces the history of Makor from the emergence of the cave-dwellers and the beginning of human agriculture through to the founding of Israel and the geopolitical consequences. And side by side with his story of the evolution of human civilisation, Michener traces, as it were, the evolution of God---from mankind's first attempts to make sense of the world via a belief in earth spirits, through polytheism to the emergence of the concept of a single supreme being, and to the codification of faith first as Judaism, then Christianity, then Islam. But Michener's focus stays with the Jews, and consequently this is a story of great suffering as well as great faith. Rarely is Makor at the centre of anything; but its position as a frontier town places it in the path of invasion, war and conquest; and over thousands of years its control passes from civilisation to civilisation, culture to culture, religion to religion; until its destruction by the Mameluks in the 13th century. Periods of truce, easy or uneasy, are punctuated with others of persecution and slaughter. We see again and again, for individuals and groups, that religious faith may be the basis of incredible courage and devotion and love; but always too we are reminded of the sickening, unconscionable violence committed throughout history, both within and between religions, all in the name of God. The final stages of The Source deal with the founding of the State of Israel, the question of what modern Israel will be, and the impending threat of yet another religious war. Yet the novel manages to end on a note of triumph and optimism. The story of Makor is the story of "the source", its mysterious water supply: and The Source concludes with its rediscovery, the accompanying suggestion of rebirth, and further evidence of the incredible tenacity of mankind.

    A youth of fifteen ambled over, sloppy, happy, his sleeves rolled up for the job of cleaning the dining hall... Eliav handed him the Hebrew Torah, pointed to a passage in Deuteronomy and asked, "Can you read this?"
    "Sure."
    "Go ahead." The boy studied the words, some of the oldest written in Hebrew, and said tentatively, "My father was an Aramaean with no home. He went to Egypt. Not many. There he became a nation."
    "Good," Eliav said, and the pleased kibbutznik returned to his work.
    Cullinane was impressed. "You mean...any educated Israeli today can read the Bible exactly as it was written?"
    "Of course. For us it is a living book, you understand. That boy, for example. Son!" The youth came back, smiling. "You ever go to synagogue?"
    "No!"
    "Your parents religious?"
    "No!"
    "But you know the Torah? The Prophets?"
    "Sure," and he left.
    "That's what you must remember, Cullinane. Every Jew you see on this dig can read the original Bible better than you can read Chaucer."
    "You've proved your point," the Irishman admitted.
    "I haven't got to the point yet," Eliav corrected. "We Jews persisted in history...where are the Babylonians, the Edomites, the Moabites with their multitudes of gods? They're all gone, but our tenacious little group of Jews lives on. And we do so because what you've been reading in Deuteronomy is to us a real thing. One crucial passage you must have noticed. It has an historic actuality, whether you Gentiles and we Jews like it or not."
    "Which one?"
    Without consulting the Torah, Eliav quoted, "'For you are a people consecrated to the Lord your God: of all the peoples on earth the Lord your God chose you to be His treasured people.'"

Finished Death Comes To Perigord for TIOLI #5.

Now reading Simon The Coldheart by Georgette Heyer.

>167 lyzard: I'm so sad for you that Up the Down Staircase didn't make it up one more spot in this list. It's so, so good.

>171 rosalita:

Feeling very sorry for myself too, although not for that reason. :D

(Seriously, thanks for the rec!)

>171 rosalita: I have fond memories of that one, too, from my teen years when I was raiding the fiction section of my local public library for anything readable.

>170 lyzard: noted.

>173 NinieB: I went to school in a very rural Midwest area, so the setting in the book was a shock to my system. It really opened my eyes to the way public schools are so unequal.

I also may have gone through a phase of greeting my teachers with, "Hey, Teach!" though to my utter disappointment none of them every responded with "Hey, Pupe!" :-D

>174 Helenliz:

Finally, yes. :)

>175 rosalita:

Depictions of your school system in films and on TV fill me with horror. Though mind you, I say that as someone who has no idea what *our* school system looks like these days. :D

>175 rosalita: I think the notion of a big city school kind of befuddled me. My high school didn't even have staircases.

>177 NinieB: Right! My school had K-12 in a single one-story building.

Finished Simon The Coldheart for TIOLI #8.

Now reading Patty And Azalea by Carolyn Wells.

Well. I don't know if this has made the international news but the east coast of NSW is currently experiencing torrential rain and widespread flooding, with homes lost and mass evacuations.

I've been very lucky: I managed to get an overstretched roof guy in to address a problem spot on my roof just before the storms hit; and while I have discovered a secondary problem and have some water damage, the weak spot which has been a recurrent issue for me has held out despite the incessant drenching.

The last few days have been bizarre in that I've done absolutely nothing, but am stress-exhausted---having spent them clenched, if you understand what I mean.

Here, at least, things are supposed to be breaking on Wednesday; but it looks like being a fairly sudden thing, with two more days of rainfall to endure before relief comes.

>180 lyzard: Glad to hear that you are OK. It did make the news in the U.K. - I was watching the video of someone’s house floating away this afternoon - but not in a big way I have to admit.

>180 lyzard: I'm sorry to say I haven't heard much about your flooding problems here in the U.S., probably because the latest horrific mass shooting of 8 people (including 6 Asian women) has taken the bulk of the coverage. I'm glad you were able to shore up your roof and am hoping it will hold through the next round of torrential rains.

>180 lyzard: Thanks for mentioning--checking with my relatives in Ulladulla that all is OK!

>180 lyzard: Yikes, I hadn't heard because I've spent a weekend away from news. So glad to hear you're okay, and hope that fortune continues.

>181 SandDune:, >182 rosalita:, >183 NinieB:, >184 swynn:

Thanks, all! It sounds like one last dreadful day tomorrow and then an abrupt end to it. I hope the latter is correct, anyway.

>181 SandDune:

Yes, that was at Taree, on the mid-north coast, which has had the worst of it (so far).

>182 rosalita:

Heard about your tragedy, I'm so sorry. :(

>183 NinieB:

FYI tomorrow may be a bad day for them: the south coast is predicted to be badly hit.

(I'm not technically on the south coast but too close for comfort!)

>184 swynn:

About 24 hours more to clench through!

>180 lyzard: golly that does sound bad. At least the problem roof repair seems to have held up. Hope that you manage the next few days until the drier weather makes its appearance.

I'm sorry you've had a couple of stressful days! Being exhausted from feeling "clenched" is definitely a familiar feeling...

>186 Helenliz:

I've got creeping damp in one room so that will have to be dealt with but it's a lot less than it could have been...as I keep reminding myself. They're still insisting the sun will be out tomorrow which would make a very pleasant change! - it's been over a week and I'm feeling a bit like a mushroom. :)

>187 scaifea:

Hi, Amber! Yes, the reason varies but the feeling doesn't seem to go away these days, alas!

Finished Patty And Azalea for TIOLI #13---and also FINISHED A SERIES!!!!

A real, honest-to-goodness, 17-book-long series, too! - which I have been reading since (I'm kind of scared to check) 2012!

This definitely warrants a marmoset!---

---and this is a Santarem marmoset, otherwise known (for obvious reasons) as the black and white tassel-eared marmoset. They inhabit a restricted jungle area on the Amazon in Brazil, and their conservation status is now of some concern due to habitat destruction:

>189 lyzard: Yep, can confirm — those are tassel ears, all right!

And hooray hoorah for finishing a long-ass series! I'm sure you'll miss ole Patty and her adventures. ;-)

I'll be back in a tick with a question question that arose from my reading of Benevent Treasure. I need to find my e-reader first so I can remember what it is. :-D

>190 rosalita:

Frankly, she wore out her welcome a while back. :)

Ooh! {*bated breath*}

>189 lyzard: Well the least the little creature could do is look happy about a 17 book series.
Isn't it funny how some series start rough and improve, while in others you wish they'd stopped a bit earlier.

>189 lyzard: Congratulations! I wonder if there are any azalea-chowing primates?

>191 lyzard: OK, I am now prepared with documentation. But first, a quote from The Benevent Treasure that seems particularly suitable for LibraryThing — sing it, sister!

It is astonishing how much room books can take up. Even the smallest book-case when emptied appears to have given up double the number of books which it could have supposed to contain

And now the question, which pertains to Maudie picking up men clients on the train. In Chapter Six, Maud is riding the Retley train, sitting in a "third-class carriage" which as everyone knows are sometimes badly crowded, but not in this case. In fact, only one elderly gentleman shares the space with her, and further reassurance comes from the fact that it is a "corridor train."

My questions pertain to the bits in quotation marks. I assume third-class reflects that it was a cheaper fare in a car that has more seats packed into the space, similar to the difference between, coach, business and first class seats on an airplane today. But what is a "corridor train" and what would the other type(s) be that would not be so reassuring for Maudie to share with a strange man?

Oh, and then I marked this passage in Chapter Seven, which seems to be quoting a nursery rhyme or similar that I am not familiar with. I wondered if you knew it?

'It sounds a bit like "The stick began to beat the dog, the dog began to bite the pig, the little pig jumped over the stile, and so the old woman got home that night," doesn't it?'
Candida laughed too. 'Can you say it all the way through? I used to be able to.'
'I don't know — that bit just came into my head. It works up to a butcher killing an ox and water quenching a fire, as far as I remember.'

>192 Helenliz:

He reflects my own feelings. This series was okay when Patty was still a schoolgirl, but after she graduates it becomes little more than her going from house-party to house-party to house-party.

>193 NinieB:

Thank you! Azaleas are generally toxic* but can be eaten by deer, I think.

(*This Azalea was particularly toxic! :D )

>194 rosalita:, >195 rosalita:

Amen! :D

At the time there actually was no such thing as second-class on British trains, just first and third. (Second has died away during the late 19th century, but there would be an overhaul of train conditions just a few years after this novel was published.) There were also special cheap tickets on certain days and at certain times that the money conscious would make use of. (Of course this is still Austerity Britain so everyone was; but you see this in Agatha too, via Miss M.)

A corridor train meant that there was a corridor running the length of the carriage, down one side of it, with doors opening into the individual compartments from that---so that someone could come along and look in at any moment, or you could change compartment. There were other trains in which the compartments were sealed off with a single door that only opened onto the platform when the train stopped, so you were trapped with whoever else got in.

>195 rosalita:

It's what they call a cumulative tale, or chain folklore---a nursery rhyme or a song or story that builds on itself line by line.

The most familiar one these days is probably "This Is The House That Jack Built" (This is the maiden all forlorn / That milked the cow with the crumpled horn / That tossed the dog / That worried the cat / That killed the rat / That ate the malt / That lay in the house that Jack built...).

However the one quoted in The Benevent Treasure is called "The Old Woman And Her Pig", which is similar but written as a short story. Candida and Stephen are reciting the final paragraph

As soon as the cat had lapped up the milk, the cat began to kill the rat; the rat began to gnaw the rope; the rope began to hang the butcher; the butcher began to kill the ox; the ox began to drink the water; the water began to quench the fire; the fire began to burn the stick; the stick began to beat the dog; the dog began to bite the pig; the little pig in a fright jumped over the stile; and so the old woman got home that night.

ETA: And you can find the full thing here.

Meanwhile---

Now reading The Recess by Sophia Lee.

>197 lyzard: Thank you! I don't know what American trains were like back in the day, but currently each car is just filled with rows of seats all facing the same direction, two or three on either side of a central aisle and on one or two levels depending on the train. (Business class is the same, but with fewer, fancier seats.) Even the cars that contain the private compartments don't enter and exit directly from the platform in my experience, so that was puzzling me. But I can see how that could get even an intrepid private enquiry agent like Maudie in a pickle!

And thanks for the nursery rhyme — "The House That Jack Built" made it to our side of the pond but somehow it never occurred to me there would be others. But of course there are!

>199 rosalita:

I think corridor trains were more common. Perhaps it was a local line / long distance thing? Anyway, it was the late fifties when the British train system was overhauled so we're just about at the end of that era.

Hey! Corridor carriages were still in service in the 1970s. I can remember them from when I was a child. That and riding in the guard's van with the pram, so I must have been only 5.

They had sliding doors between the compartment and the corridor, so there wasn't doors swinging open into the corridor. The ones I remember would seat 6, the difference between 1st and 3rd would have been the plushness of the upholstery and little things like the presence of arm rests between seats.

Publication date: 1917
Genre: Young adult
Series: Patty Fairfield #15
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (by an author read before)

Patty Blossom - Three plots intertwine in this 14th entry in Carolyn Wells' young adult series built around the pretty and flirtatious Patty Fairfield. In very much the least of them, Patty falls in with a group of "Bohemians", who are depicted as hollow and pretentious - though their main crime is being "not our sort" - in a piece of heavy-handed satire that chiefly serves to illustrate Wells' own snobbery (as if it needed illustrating at this point in things!). Meanwhile, the wedding of Patty's friends, Roger Farrington and Mona Galbraith, draws near; and most of Patty's friends are determined that one wedding will spawn another. The assumption of almost everybody is that Patty will marry the aristocratic Philip van Reypen; it is certainly his own assumption, to the point of behaving as if he and Patty are engaged. The situation forces Patty finally to confront her feelings for Bill Farnsworth who, in spite of his personal attainments and college education, is a self-made man---and consequently also considered not quite enough "our sort" by Patty's crowd. (Though when you get right down to it, he's every bit as much a snob as the rest.) To Patty's credit, however - and this is one of the very few things wholly to her credit - she is unmoved by Philip's wealth and social standing, and conversely fully awake to Bill's personal qualities. But with his frequent absences in the west on business, miscommunication and misunderstanding are only too easy; and to Patty's dismay, she realises that Bill, too, is convinced of her engagement to Philip...

    Before she rang for her morning chocolate, Patty thought over the events of the previous evening. She was furiously angry at Farnsworth. So much so, that she could think of little else.
    "How dared he?" she exclaimed to herself. "The idea of his thinking I am the sort of girl he can pick up and kiss like that!"
    And then her face grew pink with blushes and she buried it in a pillow because she realised she was not nearly so indignant as she ought to be!
    "Good heavens!" she thought, frantically. "Am I in love with Little Billee? With a Westerner? A self-made man? Why, he can't hold a candle to Phil for birth and name! And yet---oh, no, I'm not in love with him! He's too---too---he takes too much for granted. It's got to stop! Think how he carried me out of the Studio party! And last night! No wonder he walked off home without seeing me again! I wonder what he will offer by way of apology or explanation. I believe I'll ask him!"
    Patty reached out her hand for the telephone, and suddenly stopped.
    "I can't!" she whispered to herself, shame-facedly, "I---I don't want any apology from him. I---I---oh, fiddlesticks! I don't know what to do!"

>200 lyzard: Thanks, Liz!

>201 Helenliz: So are newer UK trains more like what I described for the U.S? Just rows of seats akin to an airplane cabin? I kind of like the idea of having smaller compartments if only to keep the chatter down to a dull roar.

>202 lyzard: Good gravy, I hope she finally married one of them after all that rigamarole!

>203 rosalita: Yes, they're mostly airline style now. After compartment trains, they moved to seats either side of the aisle, but facing each other in little blocks. More sociable that way. But they're now mostly all airline style.
It saves the playing kneesy with the stranger opposite...

>205 Helenliz: Pity. Although I'm with you on not being a fan of playing kneesy with strangers!

>201 Helenliz:, >203 rosalita:, >205 Helenliz:

I don't doubt it: we had a train here that everyone called a 'red rattler' that was still in service decades after its official phase-out.

That sort of enforced socialisation is my idea of hell. Our replacement trains had fixed seats with some of them forcing people to face each other: everyone hated it, so in the next generation they brought back the previous movable seat backs! :D

>204 rosalita:

Stick around! :D

Publication date: 1918
Genre: Young adult
Series: Patty Fairfield #16
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (one vowel in author's surname)

Patty--Bride - This penultimate entry in Carolyn Wells' young adult series is interesting in spite of itself. Though writing contemporaneously through the mid-teen years, previously Wells had avoided all mention of the war, even after America's entry into the conflict; and there is a definite sense that she hoped she wouldn't have to; but with 1917 rolling over into 1918, she really couldn't (excuse the expression) dodge that bullet any longer. Her way of "dealing with it", however, it almost as annoying as if she'd continued to ignore reality: the situation is treated chiefly as an excuse for the social gatherings that make up far too much of this series' "plots", with Patty and her friends holding benefit parties at which young servicemen are the guests of honour. However, no-one ever seems to get to Europe, and conscription never rears its ugly head; and though some the young men of Patty's immediate circle do undergo "training", it doesn't seem to interfere much with their social lives; while Bill Farnsworth, conveniently enough, scores a government post that has him shipping out no further than Washington. Bill and Patty finally came to an understanding at the conclusion of the previous entry, Patty Blossom---their engagement coming as a surprise to most of their friends and an intolerable blow to Philip van Reypen, who refuses to take it seriously and warns Patty that he will use the time remaining before the wedding to make her change her mind. Patty, however sorry to hurt him, is serenely happy in her engagement, and proud to assist Bill in a small way in his confidential war-work, by occasionally holding and passing on certain top-secret documents: an occupation that eventually makes her the target of a group of fifth-columnists... Meanwhile, Patty is determined to have a show-stopping wedding, and plans accordingly; but when Bill is abruptly ordered to France, she has a big decision to make...

    Patty’s eyes filled with tears. “I suppose it does look strange to you, Bumble,” she said; “but you don’t understand, dear. I know Billee would do better work and get along with less care and anxiety without me than with me. I know I should be a hindrance and I daren’t go. I mustn’t put a straw in the way of his splendid career,---I mustn’t be the least mite of a millstone about his neck. It is because my love for him is so complete, so all-enveloping,---that I know I must sacrifice myself to it---and to him.”
    “But, Patty, he’ll think you don’t want to go.”
    “I know that, Helen. And that I have to bear, too. If he knew how I want to go,---how I long to go,---how it seems as if I must go,---he never would go off without me! I have to bid him good-bye, smilingly,---even though my heart breaks after he is gone.”
    “Forgive me, Patty, I did misjudge you. You are bigger than I am. I should be too selfish to look at it as you do.”
    “Perfect love casts out selfishness, Helen, even as it casts out fear. I know I am right. I’ve thought it all out for myself. It is my duty to stay at home, and to send my Billee away, with only words of cheer and Godspeed. It is my duty not to let him know my real feelings,---I mean the depth of sorrow and grief that I feel at his going. It is my duty to make it as easy for him to go as I possibly can,---and that can only be done by a light, even seemingly careless attitude on my part. I know what I’m talking about, dear, and I know that if he knew what is really in my heart for him,---he would take me with him---or,---stay at home! Oh, I don’t dare, Bumble, I don’t dare let him know!”

>209 lyzard: Oh, brother!

>210 rosalita:

Trust me, I'm sparing you! :D

Publication date: 1919
Genre: Young adult
Series: Patty Fairfield #17
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (MARCHBREAK rolling challenge)

Patty And Azalea - Somewhat surprisingly - and perhaps unwisely - Carolyn Wells' series did not conclude with its young heroine at the altar, but returned for one last hurrah (sort of). We've skipped about a year here, with the war now safely over - and war-talk explicitly interdicted - and Patty and Bill Farnsworth not only married, but the parents of a baby girl, Fleurette (yet another reason for the skip forward). But instead of focusing upon the young couple's adjustment to marriage and parenthood and their setting up of their home - though the latter does occupy some of the narrative - Wells fires one more shot out of the snobbery-cannon that has been one of this series' mainstays. Bill's backstory is that he was orphaned young and taken in by reluctant relatives, but stood on his own two feet as soon as he was able. He is consequently short on family; but Patty is intrigued by hearing of Azalea Thorpe, the daughter of his father's cousin, and proposes that they invite her east from (profound shuddering) Horner's Corner, Arizona. Azalea is almost disturbingly prompt in accepting the invitation; and when she arrives, it is soon evident that Patty may have bitten off more than she can chew... I suppose Carolyn Wells intended these books as "aspirational" for their young female readership, but their class consciousness, rampant snobbery, conspicuous consumption and smug self-satisfaction make them all but intolerable these days; and the handling of the untaught and rough-mannered Azalea in this final entry is beyond galling. But Azalea has a secret - actually she has several - and the main one is that she aspires to be a movie actress. The horrified reaction to this of everyone else involved makes for an interesting and informative comparison with the contemporaneous Ruth Fielding series by "Alice B. Emerson", in which the young protagonist is herself significantly involved in movie-making, and holds off a looming romantic relationship in order to focus on her career---all with her authors' open approval, and in a way which is also clearly intended to be aspirational. Here, however, Azalea is the target of an Eliza Doolittle-esque forced makeover by Patty; and far from resenting it, she eventually sees the light, dismisses her ambitions, learns table manners and other such niceties---and is rewarded in a manner that, for anyone who has read the series through, is absurd to the point of being insulting.

    Up the steps toward her flew a figure which, as Patty afterward described it, seemed like a wild Indian! A slight, wiry figure, rather tall and very awkward, and possessed of a nervous force that expressed itself in muscular activity.
    "Oh, how do you do?" the girl cried, explosively. "You're Cousin Patty,---aren't you?" But even as she spoke, she stumbled on the steps, pitched forward, falling on Patty, and but for Farnsworth's quick action would have knocked her down.
    "Jiminy crickets! Ain't I the tangle-foot! Guess I'm getting in bad at the very start. Hope I didn't hurt you."
    "Not at all," said Patty, recovering her poise, both mental and physical. "You are very welcome, Azalea. Will you sit here a few minutes before we go in the house?"
    "Sure! I'll spill myself right into this double-decker!"
    She threw herself into a long wicker lounging-seat, of the steamer-chair type, and stretched out her feet in evident enjoyment of the relaxation. "Well, this is comfort, after travelling cross country for days and days! I say, Cousin, it was awful good of you to ask me."
    "Think so?" and Patty tried to smile pleasantly. She avoided catching Bill's eye, for the poor man was overcome with shame and consternation that his relative should be so impossible.
    "Yep,---I do. My! this place of yours is swell. I never saw such a grand house---close to. You're rich, ain't you, Cousin William?"
    "So, so," Farnsworth replied, gazing at the girl in a sort of horrified fascination.

>212 lyzard: Oh those low-class gals from Arizona named after poisonous flowers!

>212 lyzard: OK, but that's it now, right? You don't have any more insufferably snobbish stories of Young Patty hiding up your sleeve?

Promise?

>213 NinieB:

If it hadn't so obviously been going to turn out as it does, I would have enjoyed Azalea giving Bill and Patty wat-fer!

>214 rosalita:

Not of Young Patty, no; but Wells does have several other young adult series, sooo...

Oh! - and of course I still have the rest of Elsie Dinsmore to get through! :D

Ooh, look, everyone!---

It's a reasonably-sized paperback edition of a trashy novel---whoo!!

No offence to James A. Michener, but I am SO much more excited about this! :D


  

...though mind you, while I say "a trashy novel"---

---this 50th anniversary edition is a Virago release...

Having read those reviews I think you need a whole troop of marmosets as a reward for finishing that series. O. M. G.

Wait, that's not *a* trashy novel, it's *the* trashy novel, no? Or would that be Peyton Place?

>218 Helenliz:

The books are all short, I will say that for it. The Elsie Dinsmores, by comparison, are getting longer. {*shudder*}

I did think about a fan-throated lizard when I finished those reviews...

>219 swynn:

Peyton Place is the ur-trash novel and my resentment of By Love Possessed for beating it out of #1 is deep and enduring.

Have you read this one, Liz? English Women of Letters: Biographical Sketches

>221 NinieB:

I haven't; though (checks) it seems to be available via the State Library. Is that the one you mentioned with respect to Catharine Crowe?

ETA: I see she did a French one, too.

>222 lyzard: Nope, it's a different one. Written in 1860 and focusing on women novelists from Aphra Behn through Jane Austen.

>223 NinieB:

Thanks for the heads-up, I'll add it to the List. :)

ETA: It turns out I have about a dozen of Kavanagh's novels on my list, but not this.

Finished The Recess: A Tale Of Other Times for TIOLI #6.

And since I'm still in an 18th century, proto-Gothic sort of mind-space---

Now reading Anecdotes Of A Convent by Anonymous.

Ruminations:

Another month rushing towards us, my reviewing totally out of control---

Hello, normality.

I'm hovering at the moment between letting my disorganisation rule for one more month (at least) or finally accepting my library restrictions and moving on by other means. (Hey, it's only been a year after all!) My hesitation is because, come Monday, we are beginning some cautious roll-backs---with various gatherings allowed, face masks no longer compulsory on public transport, etc.

This has made me start hoping that my academic library might actually open to the public again. I keep having to remind myself that it exists for the benefit of students and staff, not for that of the general public, and that there is no reason at all they should be in any hurry to go down that road.

Still...

But putting aside those overly optimistic twinges---

At the moment my challenges / projects look like this:

Virago group read: The Executor / The Rector by Margaret Oliphant (ebooks)
Best-seller challenge: Valley Of The Dolls (borrowed)
Shared read: Poison In The Pen by Patricia Wentworth (library, available)
Potential decommission: Mind Hunter by John Douglas (owned)

C. K. Shorter challenge: The Life Of Mansie Wauch by David Moir (available as an ebook, but the academic library has an 1898 edition that they're willing to lend)
Random reading: The Foundling by Francis Spellman (will have to be read online if read at all)

Mystery League challenge: The Gutenberg Murders by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning (Rare Books / unavailable)
Banned in Boston challenge: From Man To Man by Olive Schreiner (academic library / unavailable)

Plus various old mysteries, only available through Rare Books, which is stalling a lot of my series reading.

The other issue, as I griped about before, is the huge hike in academic loan fees, which has all but cut off access to another subset of old and obscure works.

Looked at like that, I can console myself that at least some of my chronic disorganisation isn't my fault; but really, I know I have to bite the bullet, ignore my OCD, and just Move On...

>226 lyzard: Looks like some good reading, including Mrs Oliphant!

(You are linking to Georgette Heyer's Foundling, not Francis Spellman's.)

>227 NinieB:

Should be! Wish I could relax into a rhythm, though.

Wishful thinking. :D

Publication date: 1964
Genre: Young adult
Series: The Three Investigators #1
Read for: Shared read / TIOLI (juvenile detectives or adventurers)

The Secret Of Terror Castle - Much of this first entry in the young adult "Three Investigators" mystery series is devoted to setting up its premise. The three teenage sleuths are Jupiter Jones, the brains of the outfit; Pete Crenshaw, his athletic sidekick; and nerdy Bob Andrews, the librarian / research guy (who of course I had a crush on, lo these many years ago). The boys' hideout is an old trailer, buried and forgotten in the junk-yard operated by Jupiter's aunt and uncle, and subsequently equipped with a dedicated landline and such useful adjuncts as a darkroom / laboratory, and with a series of secret entrances via which the three can evade the watchful, work-obsessed eye of Aunt Matilda. From this base the boys launch their new investigation venture---getting around southern California (at this early point in the narrative) in a chauffeur-driven limousine: 30 days of such service having been won by Jupe in a contest. And though you might feel that this is more than enough set-up to be going on with, the bonne bouche is that the boys secure the patronage of Alfred Hitchcock, then at the height of his pop-cultural success via his own TV series, and whose comments (supposedly) form the framework for these mysteries. In The Secret Of Terror Castle, Hitchcock is a reluctant collaborator indeed---offended that Jupiter obtains access to him by impersonating his nephew, and extremely sceptical of the proposition put to him: that he will endorse the boys' new business if they succeed in discovering for him a real haunted house, something he is seeking for use in his next film. The property selected by Jupiter for investigation is "Terror Castle", once the home of famous horror-movie actor, Stephen Terrill, who disappeared without trace decades before. Situated high in the Hollywood hills, the now-abandoned Terror Castle has a reputation for strange phenomena: supposedly, anyone intruding there is driven away in a state of uncontrollable fear---something the boys experience for themselves when they first venture inside. But The Three Investigators are not so easily defeated... The Secret Of Terror Castle is more an adventure story than a mystery, with the boys uncovering a secret within a secret, tangling with desperate criminals, and battling their recurring bête noire, E. Skinner "Skinny" Norris, who makes a practice of trying to thwart their ventures purely out of malice. While the secret is not difficult to deduce - one suspects that the producers of Scooby Doo may have had an eye on this series when they began making their own - the narrative serves as a rousing introduction to the boys and their adventures; and if the three don't exactly discover a haunted house, as promised, they do solve one longstanding mystery---in the process impressing Alfred Hitchcock sufficiently to forge an ongoing partnership...

    “Hey!” The word was just a gasp. “Do you feel what I feel?”
    “I feel cold,” the other lad said, sounding puzzled. “We’ve entered a zone of low temperature. Cold spots are very frequently found in haunted houses.”
    “Then this one is haunted,” Pete Crenshaw told him, his teeth chattering. “I feel a cold draught as if a whole parade of ghosts were rushing by. I’ve got goose-flesh. I’m scared! That’s all. I’m just plain scared!” He stood there for a moment longer, trying to control his chattering teeth. From nowhere the icy draught flowed over him. Then he saw faint, wispy tendrils of mist begin to form in the air as if a spirit might be materialising. At the same instant the uneasy feeling that had become extreme nervousness mounted to sheer terror.
    He turned. He didn’t intend to turn. His feet did it for him. They took him straight out the main entrance and down the old drive way, running like a deer.
    Right beside him was Jupiter Jones. It was the first time Pete had ever seen his partner run away from anything so fast.
    “I thought you said your legs took orders from you,” he called.
    “They do,” cried Jupe. “I ordered them to run.”

I do have one objection to The Secret Of Terror Castle:

Horror movies such as the ones described here were not made during the silent era...

>229 lyzard: I love the connection you made between Scooby Doo and The Three Investigators — it makes so much sense! And of course you had a crush on Bob. All the smart nerdy girls did, I'm sure. *raises hand*

Your spoiler in >230 lyzard: is news to me — I had no idea that wasn't a plausible plot line. Today I Learned ...

Publication date: 1964
Genre: Young adult
Series: The Three Investigators #2
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (page numbers not above text)

The Mystery Of The Stuttering Parrot - I read as many of The Three Investigators books as I could get my hands on when they were age-appropriate, which in those days wasn't all of them, alas; but while I'm pretty sure I then read The Secret Of Terror Castle, probably as a library book, I'm quite certain I owned The Mystery Of The Stuttering Parrot---and it was frankly scary how much of it I remembered on this decades-later re-read. Having been won over - more or less - by the boys' unravelling of the Terror Castle mystery, Alfred Hitchcock finds a second case for them to investigate. His friend, Malcolm Fentriss, has recently had his pet parrot stolen and can't get the police to take the matter seriously. When Jupiter Jones and Pete Crenshaw approach Fentriss' house, they hear a call for help from inside---and then find themselves staring down the barrel of a gun... Having learned that Mr Hitchcock called ahead to his friend - and Mr Fentriss, in turn, having demonstrated the gun-shaped cigar-lighter with which he tested their nerve - the boys are disappointed to hear that the parrot has returned of its own volition, and that it was the bird they heard calling for help. However, as they leave, Jupiter notes that there are no telephone wires leading to the house; the boys then witness "Fentriss" speeding away from the scene. Inside the house, they discover the real Malcolm Fentriss tied up. They learn from him that his attacker, who called himself Mr Claudius, first posed as being from the police, but soon revealed a very different interest in the missing parrot. The bird, dubbed "Billy Shakespeare", spoke perhaps the bard's most famous line---but did so with an apparent stutter: "To-to-to be, or not to-to-to be?"... After so much of The Secret Of Terror Castle being given over to series set-up, The Mystery Of The Stuttering Parrot offers a far more satisfactory mystery, one which plays pretty fair in allowing the boys - through hard work, intelligent deduction and a dash of luck - to outwit a professional art-thief called Huganay. From the repentant Mr Claudius, the boys learn that at the heart of the matter is a valuable painting originally "acquired" by a man calling himself John Silver---and whose sideline was puzzle-making. As revenge upon Mr Claudius, Silver left a trail of clues to the painting's whereabouts in the form of seven lines of dialogue spoken by seven parrots---which have since been sold and dispersed. Racing against time and the machinations of Huganay, The Three Investigators must not only find a way to access all seven clues, but correctly interpret them---keeping in mind always that John Silver was a man who loved a joke...

    "Careful!" Jupiter said. "Don't excite him. Let's see if he'll do it again. Robin Hood!" he said to the mynah bird. "Hello, Robin Hood."
    "I'm Robin Hood!" Blackbeard said once more. "I shot an arrow as a test, a hundred paces shot it west."
    Pete Crenshaw swallowed hard. Even Jupiter looked awed.
    "Remember," he whispered, "Carlos said that he used to ride around on Mr Silver's shoulder, while he was training the parrots?"
    "And now I remember!" Bob said excitedly. "When we first got him, he repeated Scarface's message, 'I never give a sucker an even break'---only we didn't know then it was Scarface's. Mynah birds are sometimes better talkers than parrots and this one seems unusually smart. Do you think---"
    "We'll try it," Jupiter said. He handed Blackbeard a large sunflower seed.
    "Sherlock Holmes," Jupiter said clearly. "Hello, Sherlock Holmes."

>231 rosalita:

Horror movies were very much disapproved by the critics in the early days of American film, resulting in a lot of horror-comedies and "explained away" stories in which It Was All A Dream, or - speaking of Scooby Doo - a haunting turned out to be the smokescreen of a criminal gang or whatever. The only real (that is, supernatural) horror movies of that time came from Europe.

Scooby Doo debuted in 1969, not a coincidence I would suggest... :)

Publication date: 1953
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Miss Silver #26
Read for: Shared read / series reading / TIOLI (author rating of 3.5+)

The Benevent Treasure - When the aunt who raised her dies, leaving her alone and in financial difficulties, Candida Sayle is grateful to be offered a refuge by her estranged great-aunts, Olivia and Cara Benevent---there having been a family feud ever since her own grandmother married against her father's will. Candida soon learns that her situation is no unmixed blessing: though Miss Cara is meek and unhappy, Miss Olivia is autocratic and demanding; while Underhill itself, built around the remains of the original 17th century Benevent house, is strange and uncomfortable. Furthermore, it becomes evident that Miss Olivia is trying to force a relationship between Candida and the ladies' secretary, Derek Burdon, who was hired overtly to write a history of the family, but has come to be regarded as an adopted nephew. However, Miss Olivia inadvertently undermines her own scheme by hiring architect Stephen Eversley to do some work at Underhill: in Stephen, Candida discovers the man who saved her life when she was only a schoolgirl, when she was caught by the tide on a dangerous beach. The two reconnect; and from Stephen, Candida first hears of the legendary Benevent Treasure, a cache of jewels supposedly brought from Italy by Underhill's founder. She also learns for certain what she has been trying hard not to think: that it was the Miss Benevents who gave her the wrong information that stranded her on that beach many years before... Like the earlier Ladies' Bane, this 26th entry in the series by Patricia Wentworth is more a Gothic thriller than a mystery, with its focus and emphasis upon the increasingly imperilled Candida. There isn't much mystery here about who the villain is, or what their intentions for Candida are - and in that respect, the narrative would have been stronger if the provisions of the will that set the plot in motion had been revealed at a much later point - but there are secret passages and apparent hauntings and murder; while Candida's experiences are creepy and her life eventually in real and imminent danger. At the same time, Candida's inevitable romance with Stephen is unobtrusive; and it is unexpectedly counterpointed by the untrustworthy Derek being redeemed by love...maybe. Miss Maud Silver enters tangentially to the main plot: she is hired by Theodore Puncheon, the step-father of Alan Thompson, Derek Burdon's predecessor as the Miss Benevents' secretary---who supposedly abused their trust by robbing them and then fleeing, and who has not been heard of since. At the time, though to their grief, Mr and Mrs Puncheon accepted this; but since his wife's death, Mr Puncheon has come to see that they did not look into the matter as they should have done. He asks Miss Silver to investigate... Not long after the two plot-threads cross paths, tragedy strikes at Underhill, with Miss Cara found dead at the foot of the stairs, apparently from a fall---but with a wound on the back of her head. Candida is stunned when Miss Olivia accuses her of murder, and treats her accordingly; while Miss Silver's investigation reveals a long history of strange deaths associated with the Benevent Treasure---all of them resulting from head injuries, just like Miss Cara's...

    "I didn’t know what I ought to do. If Aunt Olivia felt she couldn’t stay on in the same house as me, then I was the one who ought to have gone. I tried to get on to Stephen, but he wasn’t back. Derek said he wouldn’t stay if I went. You see, Aunt Olivia was saying all sorts of things about both of us, and there are a lot of valuable things in the house. He said we ought to ring up the police and ask them what to do about it, so we did, and the Inspector said I ought to stay. And then I got on to Stephen, and he said he would ask you to come."
    Miss Silver had seated herself. Candida took the chair on the other side of the fire and leaned forward.
    "Stephen says you know a good deal already---about my aunts, and Alan Thompson, and everything. It all seems to go a long way back."
    Miss Silver had taken up her knitting. A grey stocking depended from the needles. It was the last of the set, and it was nearly finished. She said, "It is always difficult to know where things begin. There are causes which lie a very long way back. There are jealousies, resentments, hatreds, which have their roots in the remote past."
    Something in Candida answered this. It was like the string of a musical instrument which trembles in response to a distant note. She said, "Yes," and found what so many had found, that it was easier to talk to Miss Silver than it was to hold things back. She told her about Barbara, about coming here to stay, about meeting Stephen again---"You know, he really did save my life once long ago." And so on, through the time of her visit down to the last few days.
    Miss Silver sat there and knitted. Sometimes she asked a question, but for the most part she was silent. Inspector Frank Abbott of Scotland Yard, a devoted admirer, has said of her that "she knows people". He has also observed that as far as she is concerned the human race is glass-fronted---"She sees right through them." But then it is, of course, notorious that he sometimes indulges himself in an extravagant way of speaking...

>229 lyzard:
>232 lyzard:

The Three Investigators was one of my favorites too. I did not have a crush on Bob, but Jupiter Jones was certainly a role model.

>232 lyzard: I've just started reading this one and so far none of it seems familiar to me. Two things stand out so far:
* Pete's constant interjection of "Whiskers!" whenever he gets surprised is endearing.
* The constant grumbling about Jupiter using too many big words had me re-reading his dialogue and thinking, "That doesn't seem so bad," which is probably just an indication that I am, at heart, Jupiter Jones. I'm thankful my friends don't feel the need to constantly call me out on it, though. :-)

>235 swynn:

Your loss! :D

>235 swynn:, >236 rosalita:

Yeah, it's not exactly a shocking discovery that we're all a bunch of Jupiter-s.

>237 lyzard: Whiskers!

I finished Simon, again. I'm going good but not great. Imagine you review will be a little more verbose than that. >;-)

>238 rosalita:

:D

>239 Helenliz:

Probably just a tad...

Better than Roxhythe but still not quite right. The history fine, the people not so much.

Thank you for the shared read! I will be moving on to Beauvallet at some point but it will need an ILL so I'm not sure when. But not before May.

Finished Anecdotes Of A Convent for TIOLI #12.

That finishes March---the first time in several years I haven't cracked 10 books for a month, thank you very much James A. Michener.

(Oh, well. A couple of other lengthy ones in there, so I guess it wasn't all his fault...)

Now reading The Observations by Jane Harris.

>240 lyzard: Give me some notice and I'll join you there again. That one's better.

>242 Helenliz:

Will do! :)

Finished The Observations for TIOLI #1.

Now reading Valley Of The Dolls by Jacqueline Susann.

The thread is up for the first of a planned series of group reads examing Margaret Oliphant's "Chronicles of Carlingford".

This month we will be reading two short stories, The Executor and The Rector.

The group reads are being conducted through the Virago group, but of course everyone is welcome! :)

Chronicles of Carlingford 1

>245 lyzard: Yay! Looking forward to reading Mrs. Oliphant!

Have you ever read The Cazalet Chronicles, Liz? I got them as a five-book e-omnibus years ago and finally finished the final one last year. They are one of those "family saga" endeavors set mostly in the period between the world wars in England.

>246 NinieB:

Looking forward to discussing them with you! :)

>247 rosalita:

They're on The List, but no. Not yet. :D

>248 lyzard: Of course they're on The List! I will look forward to comparing notes when you read them.

Publication date: 2003
Genre: Horror
Read for: TIOLI (purple cover)

Lost Boy Lost Girl - A few weeks after the funeral of his sister-in-law, Nancy, who committed suicide for unknown reasons, author Tim Underhill is contacted by his brother, Philip, who accuses him of hiding his teenage son from him---and so learns that Mark has gone missing. Mark's relationship with his father has always been contentious; and in addition, it was the boy who found his mother's body; so no-one would be surprised at him running away. But there is another, even more frightening possibility: over the preceding months, several teenage boys from Millhaven have fallen victim to a serial killer. Tim hires a friend of his, a private investigator, to help find Mark---and so learns that Nancy was related to another Millhaven killer, Joseph Kalendar, who raped, tortured and killed women and girls some twenty years before... Several very different plot-threads intertwine in Peter Straub's Lost Boy Lost Girl, although the results are a satisfying whole. This is a disturbing work with a background of brutal violence, but its focus remains the emotional journey of young Mark Underhill, an intelligent, sensitive boy caught up in cruel and increasingly surreal events: the choices he makes, and their consequences. The framework of the novel is the search for Mark conducted by Tim Underhill and Tom Pasmore, which increasingly becomes a hunt for the so-called "Sherman Park Killer"; while the background is the horrifying story of Joseph Kalendar, the relationship of Nancy Underhill to those events, and the mystery surrounding Lily, Joseph's daughter---the "lost girl" of the title. After opening with Nancy's suicide and Mark's disappearance, Lost Boy Lost Girl flashes back to reveal the events leading up to these interlocked tragedies. The pivotal moment is Mark's "discovery" of an abandoned house situated on the street parallel to his---which, he realises, stands directly behind his own home, separated from it by a lane-way and a high brick wall. Though Mark knows that the house has, of course, always been there, one day it is if he really sees it for the first time. His growing obsession with it, which he can hardly explain to himself, becomes strangely blended with his concern for his mother, who in the weeks leading up her death is depressed and withdrawn. After her suicide, Mark is stubbornly convinced that the house had something to do with it---or rather, that his own new awareness of the place was somehow a factor. Wracked with guilt and anger, Mark begins a cautious investigation of the property, working with his reluctant but loyal best friend, Jimbo Monaghan. As they watch, the two boys become separately convinced that someone is living in the long-abandoned house...or at least, that the house is occupied...

    Nancy turned off the television and in the abrupt silence understood that her worst fear had been realised. The world would no longer run along its old, safe tracks. There had been a rip in the fabric, and bleak, terrible miracles would result. That was how it came to her, a tear in the fabric of daily life, through which monstrosities would pour. And enter they had, drawn by Nancy's old, old crime.
    For she knew her son had not obeyed her. In one way or another, Mark had awakened the Kalendars. Now they all had to live with the consequences, which would be unbearable but otherwise impossible to predict. A giant worm was loose, devouring reality in great mouthfuls. Now the worm's sensors had located Nancy, and its great, humid body oozed ever closer, so close she could feel the earth yield beneath it.
    Nancy's own sensors prickled with dread. Moments before she was able to raise her eyes and look at the arch into the little dining room, she knew that her visitor had returned. There she stood, the child, a six-year-old girl in dirty overalls, her bare, filthy feet on the outermost edge of the faded rag rug, her small, slim, baleful back turned to Nancy. Her hair was matted with grease, possibly with blood. Anger boiled from her and hung in the dead air between them. There was a good measure of contempt in all that rage. Lily had come through the rip in the fabric to cast judgement on her weak traitorous aunt, that fearful and despairing wretch. Oh the fury oh the rage in a tortured child, oh the power in that fury. She had come also for Mark, his mother saw. Mark was half hers already, and had been from the moment that Joseph Kalendar's hellhouse had surged out of the mist...

I read Peter Straub's In The Night Room last year without realising until it was too late that it is a sequel of sorts to Lost Boy Lost Girl; hence my tracking the latter down. Fortunately they are quite distinct works, two very different takes on the same background events, so the accidental out-of-order wasn't too damaging or spoileriffic.

Publication date: 1992
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Blanche White #1
Read for: TIOLI (tagged 'African-American')

Blanche On The Lam - When she is arrested and charged for forging a cheque, Blanche White is expecting a judicial slap on the wrist, and is terrified when she finds herself facing jail time. An incident in the courthouse allows her to slip away and go on the run---but where can she hide? Blanche then remembers she was supposed to be taking up a temporary domestic job with a wealthy white couple, whose country home will, she considers, make a suitable temporary hideout. The household consists of Grace and Everett, their elderly, belligerent Aunt Emmeline - who Blanche soon realises has a drinking problem - and Mumsfield, their adult, mentally challenged cousin---who disconcerts Blanche by seeing right through the demeanour of slightly stupid servility that she instinctively adopts. It is soon evident to Blanche that this is not a happy household---but even so, she is hardly expecting to get mixed up in murder... Though appearing as late as 1992, Barbara Neely's mystery series was one of the earliest to feature a woman of colour as its protagonist---so that it is impossible not to think that Blanche's very name wasn't intended as a nose-thumb. And although Blanche finds herself unravelling a mysterious death, Blanche On The Lam is every bit as much about race relations in the South generally and the position of low-income women in particular. Much of the novel unfolds within Blanche's consciousness, as she both entertains and protects herself by playing dumb, but applies her shrewd, self-protective intelligence to the mystery unfolding around her. Meanwhile, Neely's writing style amusingly blends Blanche's ceaseless domestic duties into her ruminations upon crime---her own and others'. Blanche's troubles begin when she is forced to forge a cheque to cover her own bills, after her white employers take their own sweet time about paying her. Having worked hard to get her life in order after moving from New York to South Carolina, and now responsible for her late sister's children, Taifa and Malik, Blanche cannot face jail and instead looks for a route of escape: her old life in New York being better than prison, at least. But while the house in the country gives her time to catch her breath and plan, Blanche finds herself caught up in the strange relationships within her employers' household, and drawn against her will to the warm and likeable Mumsfield. At the same time, she is appalled to discover that the very sheriff she escaped at the courthouse is a frequent visitor; though, as just "the help", he barely registers Blanche as a person and certainly doesn't recognise her. Already puzzled by certain things she sees and overhears, when the sheriff is found dead after a conversation with Everett laced with threats and hints of blackmail, Blanche is very sure his death wasn't suicide---and quick to realise that, if it was murder, her anomalous position will make her a suspect...

    Had it really only been five days since she had taken off from the courthouse, heading in what was turning out to be a very wrong direction? She set the timer for twelve minutes.
    She wondered if Grace knew. More likely, he'd done it to keep her from finding out what the sheriff knew. To keep his meal ticket safe. It would be better to forget about the sheriff's visits, his conversations with Everett, and the limousine rolling silently down the drive. that shouldn't be a problem. She had plenty of experience not seeing what went on in her customers' homes, like black eyes, specks of white powder left on silver-backed mirrors, cuff links with the wrong initials under the bed, and prescriptions for herpes. She was particularly good at not seeing anything that might be dangerous or illegal. But as good as she was at being blind, there were certain things she couldn't overlook. She'd made more than one anonymous call to a non-custodial parent about child abuse.
    But no helpless child was endangered by the sheriff's murder. Still, it tugged at her. She transferred plump, golden biscuits from the oven to a bun warmer. How had Everett made it look like suicide? She gathered eggs and milk, and scrambled them in butter, together with salt, pepper, and a dash of Tabasco. She imagined pills in some whiskey, a hose from the exhaust pipe to the front vent window of the sheriff's car, a blow to the head, poison, a bullet to the brain. She carried the biscuits into the dining room along with the chafing dish of eggs...

>252 lyzard: I love that premise. Into the swamp it goes.

>253 swynn:

Just what you and I need, another series. :D

Yes, in all respects this is the kind of thing I should be reading more of. I'm actually hoping to get to the second one this month, though for some reason it's harder to get hold of here.

Finished Valley Of The Dolls for TIOLI #8.

Now reading The Executor by Margaret Oliphant.

Publication date: 1937
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Bony #4
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI (proper noun in title)

Mr Jelly's Business (US title: Murder Down Under) - Having apprehended a wanted man, Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte travels from Queensland to Western Australia to set at rest the mind of his professional protégé, Detective-Sergeant John Muir, who through over-eagerness let the suspect slip through his fingers. Bony is willing to give Muir all the credit for the capture, and suggests that they swap roles for a time: Muir can go and escort the prisoner back while he, Bony, takes over his current case. Muir explains that it isn't clear whether the case he is working is a criminal one or not: late one night outside of the small country town of Burracoppin, a man called George Loftus wrecked his car in a trench dug by the local Water Department---and then disappeared. Bony is sufficiently intrigued to agree: knowing that he will get further in his investigation if he conceals his profession, he arranges for a temporary job with the local Rabbit Department; while he begins to take the measure of the people of Burracoppin. In particular, he becomes interested in the case of Mr Jelly, a well-liked and respected local for the most part---but a man who every few months leaves town without warning, and returns behaving erratically, drinking hard, and flush with money... There is a sense in Mr Jelly's Business of Arthur Upfield really relaxing into his conception of the mixed-race police detective, Napoleon Bonaparte. This is a leisurely novel, one quite as much devoted to depicting the town of Burracoppin, and to Bony's developing relationships with the townspeople, as it is in the mystery that is his excuse for being there. Upfield offers an evocative and heartfelt sketch of Burracoppin, an isolated town some two hundred miles east of Perth, given over to wheat-growing and maintenance of vital infrastructure, the local water pipeline and a rabbit-proof fence. Meanwhile, most of the residents may be justly described as "characters". It is a sad indictment of things that we react with scepticism to the way in which Bony is welcomed by this tiny community, being invited to dinners, pub drinking sessions and dances---at least, once his natural charm has overcome what Upfield calls the locals' "race suspicion". There are one or two uses of derogatory terms here; but the only people who display genuine bigotry are those who may be guilty of murder... However, for much of this book it isn't clear whether any crime has been committed at all, or whether George Loftus has disappeared voluntarily for reasons of his own. As he works sporadically to settle this point in his own mind, Bony finds his attention more firmly caught by the puzzle of Mr Jelly's behaviour---and his sympathies fully engaged by the impact of it upon the man's daughters, adult Lucy and young Dulcie, known as "Sunflower". Bony is wary of his admiration for the two - he once came close to wrecking his career out of sympathy with a young woman very much like Lucy - but his detective instincts are aroused by the contradictory nature of Mr Jelly's behaviour. At length certain that George Loftus was indeed murdered, Bony sets himself to discover where in the surrounding vastness the body could have been hidden---and finds his investigation unexpectedly crossing paths with the mystery of Mr Jelly's business...

    When the silence of nature fell upon the land during those few minutes between twilight and night, Lucy suggested that he might like to accompany her when she shut up the fowls from the prowling foxes. Together they left the veranda, watched wistfully by the invalid Sunflower while they drew farther away into the reflected glow of the pink and emerald western sky.
    "Do you still wish to help us with Father?" she asked presently, glancing into his face.
    "Certainly, if you would still like me to."
    "I---I hope---" she said hesitatingly. "Supposing Father is doing something terrible. You would not act against him, would you?"
    "Everyone will think I am a policeman," he protested.
    "But aren't you? Aren't you a detective?"
    "I am not a policeman. I am an investigator of crime. I am looking into the disappearance of George Loftus. I cannot think that your father has anything to do with that, and, consequently, I can say that whatever lies behind your father's absences will be dealt with discreetly and with every regard to your feelings. Whatever the mystery behind Mr Jelly, I will lay it bare before you only."
    Realising how stupidly rash he was in saying all this, knowing he was slipping down the incline which at Windee ruined his greatest triumph, still he persisted. As the dipsomaniac who hugs his bottle although aware of the inevitable result, Bony allowed his heart to govern his mind...

Finished The Executor for TIOLI #7.

Now reading The Rector by Margaret Oliphant.

Finished The Rector for TIOLI #7.

Now reading Elsie And The Raymonds by Martha Finley.

Note to self:

If / when I ever finish the Elsie series, do a proper examination of the hilarious problem of this series' covers...

>259 lyzard: a proper examination of the hilarious problem of this series' covers

Reserving my front-row seat now. I love a good covers takedown!

>260 rosalita:

I appreciate it, but don't hold your breath!

(She said, girding her loins for 15/28...)

>261 lyzard: I mean, I'm going to count it as a win if we're both still around by the time you get to 28/28!!

>262 rosalita:

:D

I keep meaning to knuckle down to one a month and just push through it, but...

Anyway!

I have set up a new thread and will hope to see you there.