Megatheriums for Breakfast

The Wyndham Case by Jill Paton Walsh

Hardcover, my own collection

I went looking for novels by Jill Paton Walsh because I have so much enjoyed Walsh’s work in completing and extending the detective novels of Dorothy L. Sayers (Thrones, Dominions; A Presumption of Death; and The Attenbury Emeralds). In these novels somehow Walsh managed to get right into Sayers’ head and (in my opinion) reproduce perfectly her style and her feelings for her characters Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane.

Reading The Wyndham Case (published in 1993), I can see why Walsh was a perfect choice to continue Sayers’ work. There are certainly stylistic similarities here with Sayers – the sly sense of humor, the intelligent female protagonist, and even the academic background – so that The Wyndham Case seems to harmonise with Sayers’ novel Gaudy Night in particular, though of course Walsh’s novel reflects the very changed life, concerns and freedoms of students in the 1990s compared with the 1920s when Sayers was writing.

Yet it would be a injustice to imply that Walsh is simply travelling in Sayers’ footsteps in this novel. It stands up entirely by itself.

Set in the fictional St Agatha’s College, Cambridge, the story is centered around the college nurse Imogen Quy (rhymes with ‘why’), who becomes involved with the death of a student in the Wyndham Library. Of course, this being a mystery novel, this incident is quickly identified as a murder. Imogen’s intelligence and concern for her patients, the college students and staff, rapidly push her into an involvement with the solution to the case.

There are several clever twists in the complex but intelligent plot, including one which involves the terms of a 400-year old bequest to the college.

I particularly like how Imogen’s character drives her to demand further answers to details of what occurred even when the police feel they have solved the case.

It is this compassion and focus on human concerns which lift this novel out of the ordinary mystery genre. Recommended.

Unfortunately most of Walsh’s own novels now seem to be out of print. I had to buy The Wyndham Case second-hand, and the three others featuring Imogen Quy seem hard to find at a reasonable price. Nor are they yet available as e-books. Let’s hope that her success with the Sayers’ continuations encourages publishers to re-release these works.

The Attenbury Emeralds by Jill Paton Walsh

Ebook on my iPad

I’m sure that every fan of Dorothy Sayers’ mystery stories has wondered about the case which started Lord Peter Wimsey on his hobby of detection.  The case of the Attenbury emeralds (or was it the Attenbury diamonds?) is mentioned a number of times in the course of Sayers’ eleven novels about Lord Peter and his inamorata Harriet Vane.  

Perhaps like me, if you have ever written any fiction yourself, you have even fantasised about writing a pastiche yourself based on the case.  Well, if so, you have missed your chance.  

A few years ago, Jill Paton Walsh satisfyingly completed the Wimsey novel Thrones, Dominations which Sayers had left unfinished at her death, and then went on to write a sequel, A Presumption of Death, based loosely on some of Sayers’s notes.  In both books, Walsh seems to have perfectly matched Sayers’ style and channelled her feelings about her characters.  Both are very satisfying reads in their own right, and a joy for Sayers fans.

Now, with the permission of Sayers’s estate, Walsh has written a further sequel to the series. She has not only revealed the facts behind Wimsey’s first case (and cleverly resolved Sayers’ slip in referring to both Attenbury emeralds and diamonds in different references), but manages to then brilliantly extend that original case so that it has ramifications in the immediate post-WW2 period when the novel is set.  Setting it in 1951 of course allows her to bring in Harriet Vane (now Lady Peter) and a more mature Wimsey than if she had contented herself only with writing a prequel to the series set in 1921.

And then Walsh throws in a cracking surprise which overturns the lives of them all; an event which is a perfectly logical possibility arising out of the situation, characters and relationships which Sayers herself depicted.

I really enjoyed this.  The Attenbury Emeralds fully deserves to be considered as a member in good standing of the Lord Peter Wimsey series.

Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane

Ebook on my iPad

Frequently gruesome thriller, the second in the series featuring private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, set in the rougher parts of modern-day Boston.

It was a pretty good page-turner, but I must say that by now I’m a bit sick (in more than one sense of the word) with American serial-killer stories. There’s only so many ways bodies can be cut up, only so many peculiarities of the criminal mind, so that the capacity of these books to shock starts to fade. This is why I stopped reading Patricia Cornwell, and Karin Slaughter’s books are also starting to make me feel that way. Nevertheless, I’ll stick with Lehane for at least another couple of books in the hope that he moves away from this kind of stuff.

Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers

Ebook on my iPad

Sayer’s work is now mostly in the public domain in countries like Canada and Australia which respect the rule of releasing a work 50 years after the author’s death (Sayers died in 1957). I was able to pick up a number of the Lord Peter Wimsey books as free epub ebooks, but for some reason Busman’s Honeymoon was only available as a HTML file. Never mind, using the brilliant (free) epub creation and editing program Sigil, I was able to do a nice conversion.

Reading through this book again, I realized how long it was since I had last read it, and how much better it was than I remembered it. Wimsey has married Harriet Vane at last, but their honeymoon turns up yet another murder which they have to solve. There are passages which are a big ‘stagey’, reflecting the fact that the work was originally released as a stage play, but by an large a really enjoyable read.

My occasional summary of what I’ve been reading and listening to.

Gosh, I get through a lot of books in six weeks! Partly this is because I listen to a lot of audiobooks as I walk and drive, and partly because… well, I just like reading. So some of these comments will be rather brief.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

E-books on my iPhone

Really superior thrillers with some excellent characterization. It took me a little while to get into the first book because of the slightly off-putting Swedish references and context. But I was hooked by the time Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative finance reporter, is convicted of libel but then offered an intriguing puzzle by Henrik Vanger, an ageing industrialist: what happened to his grand-niece Harriet 40 years ago? The circumstances of her disappearance make it something like a classic “locked-room” mystery.

And we are also introduced to a young woman, Lisbeth Salander – the “Girl” of the titles – an original and memorable character, who drives the plot in some very interesting directions.

Both books were gripping, un-put-downable reading (wearing out my eyes on the small screen of the iPhone – I’m looking forward to buying an iPad).

I haven’t yet read the third in the series The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, though I am looking forward to it.*

Alas, there will be no more Lisbeth Salander books, as the author died of a heart attack not long after finishing the third book in the trilogy.

* I had to buy this in Kindle format, as the epub versions aren’t yet available. I must say that the Kindle app on the iPhone is rather poorly done. Given that Amazon bought up Stanza, I would hope that some of that technology gets put into the Kindle app.

Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy L. Sayers & Jill Paton Walsh

Audiobook

This Lord Peter Whimsey book was left unfinished at Sayers’ death, but it has been splendidly completed by Jill Paton Walsh, who seems to have channelled Sayers in her understanding of the characters of Whimsey and Harriet Vane (now Lady Peter). Very enjoyable mystery, and a wonderful picture of England as it moves inevitably towards war with Germany. I imagine, however, that some of the criticism of royalty developed in the book (the new King Edward VIII and his dallyings with Mrs Simpson, his loose behavior towards security and his dealings with the Nazis) would never have appeared in a book written by Sayers at the time.

The Water’s Lovely by Ruth Rendell

Audiobook

Rendell has an amazing ability to portray the psychological dramas of ordinary people, in novels written either under her own name or under the pen-name of Barbara Vine. And she is brilliant at inventing (or observing) remarkable characters in a seemingly ordinary urban environment.

In this book we have a fascinating and slowly developing story of two sisters influenced by the death by drowning of their step-father some fifteen years ago when they were both in their early teens. The slow revealing of this back story, the different way each of these sisters remembers this event, and the playing out of the consequences make for gripping reading.

Orpheus Rising by Colin Bateman

Audiobook

I borrowed this from the local library on a whim (the selection of audiobooks is limited, so I often pick up something on impulse). It was a bit strange, but quite enjoyable.

It tells the tale of a young Irish man who has moved to Florida, USA and writes a novel called “Space Coast” which after receiving many rejections is at last published and becomes an unexpected best-seller, making him exceedingly rich. So far so good: but his beloved wife is killed in a senseless bank robbery not long after the book is accepted for publication.

Ten years after the tragedy, after a decade wandering the world, rich but miserable, he comes back to the town where he and his wife had lived. After quite a long lead-up, about half-way through the book, strange things start happening… and at this point the book becomes intriguing, if not particularly deep.

I’ll look out for some other books by this author.

The Ladies of Grace-Adieu by Susanna Clarke

Audiobook

I am a huge fan of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which is an astonishingly good book (I’ve read it three times). Set in the 19th Century in a slightly different version of Britain, in which the study of ancient magic and faerie begins to yield positive and practical results.

This book is a compilation of stories which Clarke apparently couldn’t fit into the numerous side stories and footnotes in the original book. They vary greatly in character and seriousness, but most have an underlying humour. I particularly liked “Mr Simonelli, or the Fairy Widower” in which a country pastor discovers he has fairy relations. This is not necessarily a good thing…

Settling Accounts Quadrilogy by Harry Turtledove

E-books on my iPhone

Whew! I’ve finally finished the “Southern Victory” alternate history series by Turtledove – eleven long books detailing the consequences of the Confederate States winning “The War of Secession” in 1862. Great stuff, really, but I think I’m glad I have finished it. I feel like I have been reading this forever.

At least, I think I have finished, unless Turtledove unleashes yet another trilogy taking the history beyond the end of the Second Great War.

Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly

Paperback, my collection

The latest of Connelly’s Harry Bosch books. Bosch’s daughter, living in Hong Kong with her mother, is apparently kidnapped in retaliation for Bosch’s investigation of Chinese Triads in Los Angeles. Bosch charges off to do the Rambo thing, but not everything is as it seems…

Currently Reading

I’m currently reading:

• A Presumption of Death by Jill Paton Walsh & Dorothy L Sayers (Audiobook)
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Hardback*, my collection)

* Just a note on book prices in Australia – it was cheaper to buy this beautiful hardcover version from Amazon and have it shipped to Australia (admittedly with some other books to share the cost) than it would have been to buy a thick paperback version here, whose spine would have cracked in no time.