Karl's Reading List

Published by Zaffre/Bonnier Books UK: London, 2021. Another book from my parents' book-swap library, this one is outside my usual genres of interest, but it still gripped me. I suppose that makes sense, as the genre in question is thriller. The set up is great. In the first chapter, our main POV character, Ellen Devlin, is sitting on the train when a woman with a baby asks to sit in the empty seat next to her. Before too long, the woman has to answer a phone call, and asks Ellen to look after the baby for a few minutes. The woman then gets off at the next station, and Ellen is left with the baby, and a note that says: Please look after Mia. Don't trust the police. Don't trust anyone. I mean, what would you do?! Ellen is a complicated character, something that we learn more about as time goes on. She is recently separated, and her ex-husband is expecting a child with his new partner. Ellen, who is barren, has wanted a child for years, and is drawn to looking after Mia, even ...

Published by Agatha Christie Ltd/Planet Three Publishing: London. No date. First published 1935. Mystery novels are fun, but re-reading them can be less exciting. Well-written ones can still hold interest, but a lot of the fun is trying to figure out, along with the detective, just "whodunnit?" If you know whodunnit, it changes the game a bit. On the other hand, examples like Murder on the Orient Express and (I would suspect) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd might still be interesting on a second read, knowing the outcome, and looking for the clues that point in that direction. Perhaps, however, the way to enjoy re-reading a mystery is to leave long enough between reading and re-reading it. I first read Death in the Clouds in 2017, and in the nine years(!) since then, I seem to have forgotten enough of the plot to get sucked back in. In fact, I even became convinced that I remembered what happened, and ended up wrongly suspecting another character because of my faulty memory. Per...

Published by Viking Press/Penguin Random House: London, UK, 2024. Audiobook by Penguin Audio, 2024.  Uploaded to Audible 12-09-2024. Narrated by Nicola Walker. As regular readers of the blog (if there are any!) will know, this year I have discovered and read my way through the Thursday Murder Club series. Having recently finished The Impossible Fortune, which is the final (for now) in that series, I thought I'd give this book a go, as the only non- Thursday Murder Club book Richard Osman has yet written.  The big adjustment for me in listening to We Solve Murders is that, of course, the characters and settings of Thursday Murder Club are missing. It's always hard for a successful author of a successful series to launch another one, and I do think that We Solve Murders is not as 'tight' as Thursday Murder Club was - particularly the first in the series.  This, however, is somewhat unfair. We Solve Murders needs to stand or fall on its own merits. So... The mildly convo...

Published by The Crime Club by Collins: St James Place, London, 1959. I wasn't intending on reading another Agatha Christie book for a while, simply because of having read one so recently , but a friend lent me this one, telling me that it was their favourite, so I thought I better check it out. To say a particular Agatha Christie book is your favourite is quite high praise! After all, Christie wrote over 50 books, including such famous examples as Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, And Then There Were None , and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . I enjoy Christie's books (there is a reason she is called the 'Queen of Crime Fiction'), and particularly like the way that she - within her chosen genre of crime fiction - could play with styles, from dark thrillers (like And Then There Were None ) to slightly lighter comical entries, like Partners in Crime .  Cat Among the Pigeons plays with style again, framing the book as a spy and espionage tale, but with the twi...

Published by Page Classics/Page Publications: Location unknown, 1924. First published 1920. This is the first ever detective novel written by Agatha Christie, and also the first to introduce the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, along with his regular associates Hastings (who acts as narrator) and Inspector Japp. It is amazing, knowing how many Poirot books Agatha Christie would write, that the character is already so fully formed in this first entry. It is also interesting to note how well written this entry is, too. The twists and turns are suitably twisty and turny, and still seem to make sense in hindsight, and Poirot is suitably clever enough. As far as set up is concerned: Hastings is visiting with a friend, John Cavendish, at Cavendish's family home, now run by Cavendish's step-mother, who has remarried since Cavendish's father died. A suitable number of suspects is on hand when the step-mother dies, seemingly by poison. Hastings calls Poirot (staying nearby) to inve...

Published by Penguin Random House Australia: Australia, 2022. Book 1 in the 'Ernest Cunningham' series. Followed by ' Everyone on This Train is a Suspect. ' This odd whodunnit, written by Benjamin Stevenson, stars the character Ernest Cunningham, an author who is writing the whodunnit that we are reading, based on the 'true story' that happened to him at his family reunion - a family that, as the title suggests - is full of killers. Ernest promises that he will not lie to us - the audience - and begins by sharing the 'ten detective commandments' of real-life detective author Ronald Knox, commandments that the character-author Ernest continually refers back to throughout the narrative. Author Cunningham (as opposed to real-life author Stevenson) has mostly written self-help books for people wanting to write fiction - including detective fiction - and as such becomes the family's go-to detective when a stranger is found dead in the snow outside their r...

Published by Viking Press/Penguin Random House: London, UK, 2020. Audiobook by Penguin Audio, 2020. Narrated by Lesley Manville. Book 1 in the 'Thursday Murder Club' series. Followed by ' The Man Who Died Twice. ' Richard Osman is a TV personality and comedian in England, and this is his debut novel: a murder mystery set in a retirement community. I am happy to report that The Thursday Murder Club is everything I hoped it would be: humorous in patches, moving in patches, mysterious enough for the genre, and surprisingly sweet.  The four members of 'the club' are Elizabeth (who has a background as a spy, although the book never outright says that), Ron (a quick tempered man who used to be a semi-professional protestor for the trade unions), Ibrahim (a slightly know-it-all ex-psychiatrist), and Joyce (a retired nurse who enjoys the thrill of the case just a little too much, and who also narrates sections of the book in diary form). Basing most of their club meetin...

Published in an omnibus edition: " Ordeal by Innocence "; " One, Two, Buckle My Shoe "; " The Adventures of the Christmas Pudding " as part of the "Agatha Christie Crime Collection" by Lansdowne Press: Australia, 1985 (1973). First published in omnibus edition 1970. First published individually 1940. Another Poirot mystery, I picked up this book as a 'light read' following my successful completion of Can You Forgive Her? Like most Poirot mysteries, the plot is so twisty that it is unlikely anyone would be able to unravel it entirely on their own; however, I did manage to pick up on some hints and clues so felt not-entirely-worthless-as-a-detective by the end. Poirot visits the dentist, and notices a little bit of suspicious behaviour going on in the waiting room. When the dentist is later found dead by suspected suicide, Poirot feels like murder was more likely, even as motives for a suicide come to light. Suspects include a vanishing mi...

Published by The Reader's Digest Association, Inc./Academy Chicago Publishers: USA, 1991 (1986). Volume 3 of 'Academy Mystery Novellas.' Preceded by 'Police Procedurals.' Volume 3 of the Academy Mystery Novella collection is focussed on 'locked room puzzles', the fun sub-genre of mysteries that involves figuring out how a crime could have taken place when elements in the story suggest it to be impossible that it could have.  I like these puzzles, and this has been my favourite volume so far as a result. The collection of novellas this time are: 'The Third Bullet' by John Dickson Carr.  This is the longest entry in this volume by far, taking up almost half the volume on its own. It is also the most complex and detailed - which makes sense. Judge Charles Mortlake is found dead, with the man who had threatened to kill him standing in the room with him, and holding a gun that had just been fired. It seems open and shut, but the man - Gabriel White - appe...

Published by The Reader's Digest Association, Inc./Academy Chicago Publishers: USA, 1991. Volume 2 of 'Academy Mystery Novellas.' Preceded by ' Women Sleuths. ' Followed by ' Locked Room Puzzles. ' The second volume of a box set of four novella collections, Police Procedurals contains another four novellas, each focussing on a different detective. The four in question this time are: 'The Empty Hours' by Ed McBain. In this novella, the detective Steve Carella (not to be confused with modern actor Steve Carell) tries to solve the mystery of a woman found dead in her apartment, who has been making strange withdrawals and deposits of her own money into her own accounts. There are a number of elements to this case, and it feels the most like one that could become its own full novel. The ending is also odd in that it resolves the case nicely, while still feeling a little like a 'cheat' for this genre. 'The Sound of Murder' by Donald Westla...

Published by Fontana/Collins: Great Britain, 1973. First published 1948. A classic twisty Poirot investigation, with the murder in this one not taking place until almost halfway through the book.  In air-raids during World War 2, a newly married woman (Rosaleen) is widowed (for the second time), and her new family shut out of the inheritance due to a legal technicality. Knowing that their late brother always 'intended' for them to inherit a share of the estate, these relatives begin pressuring Rosaleen and her irritating brother (David) for money. A wrinkle emerges when a stranger arrives in the village, informing Rosaleen that her first husband may still be alive - a fact that, if true, would nullify her claim to the estate of her second husband and return all the money to his relatives. When the stranger turns up dead, suspicion naturally falls on Rosaleen and David. Poirot, however, is brought into the case, and has his doubts.... I enjoy looking for the clues in books like...

Published by The Reader's Digest Association, Inc./Academy Chicago Publishers: USA, 1991. Volume 1 of 'Academy Mystery Novellas.' This is a collection of four novellas (longer than a short story; shorter than a novel) bound together in a single volume, each on the theme of - you guessed it - women sleuths. The four novellas here are each quite different, with the only common elements being their mystery fiction genre and their use of a female protagonist. Even their time periods are different; the first three were originally published in the 1930s while the fourth was published in the 1980s. This means that the first three seem a bit dated at times - one case would have been easy to solve if DNA testing had been available. To give a brief review of each novella: 'The Toys of Death', by G.D.H. Cole and Margaret Cole, has a famous (and fairly unpleasant) author found dead in his study. Although a well-known detective is on the scene to begin with, and is able to prove...

Published by Flame Tree 451: London, UK, 2013. Originally published 1796. Dickens needs to be read at a particular pace, but when I get on the right wavelength I love his writing. This book opens with a section over a page long which just describes the London fog, and yet it is a beautifully written section that even manages to say something about the various locations and characters that the fog rolls through.  Bleak House  is a great mix of comedy, tragedy, light romance and biting satire, as indeed many of Dickens' best works are. This particular novel focuses on a never-ending court case, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, to which all of our main characters are linked in some way. A mysterious figure known only as 'Nemo' is found dead, and something about his handwriting seems to link him to the cold and distant Lady Dedlock. Meanwhile, Esther Summerson, a young woman of uncertain parentage, navigates her new life as ward of and housekeeper to John Jarndyce, as well as perhaps som...

Published by Fontana Books: London and Glasgow, 1974 (1959). First published 1957. Recently Elise and I welcomed our first child into the world! Super exciting! Baby and mum are both healthy, although some complications during delivery meant that we ended up staying in hospital longer than expected. I grabbed this book from the hospital book exchange and managed to read the entire thing before we went home (you know, in between supporting Elise with her recovery). The setting of this mystery is a small village in South East England, where the "Dance of the Five Sons" is performed each Winter Solstice by William Andersen and his five sons. The dance - a Morris dance/Mummers play/sword dance steeped in ritual and tradition - involves a moment where 'the Fool' (played by William) is 'beheaded', only to be resurrected later in the play. However, by the end of the dance it is discovered that William has indeed been beheaded, and Inspector Alleyn is called in to dis...

Published by HarperCollins Children's Books: Hammersmith, London, 2007. When I was younger I used to write blog-novels with a friend , each taking turns at creating a chapter and taking the story in a new direction - I've mentioned them before in my Grimm's Fairy Tales review. This novel reminds me of those novels for a few interesting reasons. Firstly, this novel is very funny, in a very silly way, and I've always enjoyed 'silly-funny.' Secondly, our fourth blog-novel was titled And Starring Erstwhile Rogers As Himself , and followed our protagonist Erstwhile Rogers as he got involved in a strange mystery and had to, detective-like, try to solve it. Of course, Erstwhile Rogers was not as well-written as Skulduggery Pleasant is, but the idea of a strangely-monikered 'detective' getting involved in a somewhat fantastical world sounds oddly familiar to me. And for the record, Erstwhile Rogers was finished two years before Skulduggery Pleasant came out. Ju...

Published in ebook format by  William Morrow/HarperCollins Publishers, August 2012. First published 1929. The second of two Agatha Christie short story collections I read online while researching a Year 10 mystery unit, Partners in Crime was also my first exposure to Tommy and Tuppence, an investigative duo who also are husband and wife. Their entry into Private Investigation is an interesting one - they are hired by the Government to impersonate the previous head of an investigative firm, who has been arrested for 'indiscrete dealings' including, it is assumed, espionage. Neither Tommy nor Tuppence have had any experience as Investigators, but Tommy in particular is a fan of mystery fiction and is eager to learn (though of the two, Tuppence has a greater immediate knack for the role). The collection of stories is more connected than most Christie short story collections, with earlier cases sometimes influencing latter ones in some way, and the way that Tommy in particular wan...

Published in ebook format by HarperCollins: New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, August 2011. First published 1924. I read this collection of short Poirot stories while researching mystery fiction for my Year 10 mystery fiction module . Each of these short stories is narrated by Poirot's friend Captain Hastings, and involves Poirot solving a short case of some description. I think of Poirot mysteries as the most intricate of Agatha Christie's books, so it was interesting to read a collection where, by the necessity of being short stories, the mysteries Poirot solved were not as convoluted as, say, Mrs McGinty's Dead . In fact, in one or two instances I even was able to spot the clues and figure out at least part of the mystery before 'the reveal.'  The opposite problem also emerges in some of these stories; because they are shorter, Christie doesn't always drop enough clues for the reader to figure it out themselves, relying instead on the 'reveal' to fill...

Published in an omnibus edition: " The Murder of Roger Ackroyd "; " They Do It With Mirrors " and " Mrs. McGinty's Dead " as part of the "Agatha Christie Crime Collection" by The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd.: London, 1969. Originally published 1952. Elise and I have watched some murder-mystery movies before (such as Knives Out and the Kenneth Branagh Murder on the Orient Express ) but until now we have not read one together. I didn't know anything about the plot of Mrs McGinty's Dead when we began it, but selected it solely because it was the last remaining book in my Agatha Christie omnibus edition (until maybe someday I get another one). As a shared book, I'm not entirely sure whether this worked. We enjoyed it, but because we tend to take a while to read through a book together, we did find ourselves losing track of which character was which at different points. If we ever read another mystery together, I think we should make s...

Published by Longman Cheshire Pty Limited: Melbourne, Australia, 1989. Here is a book that I have read solely to get some ideas in putting together a unit of work for some of my English students. I selected the book from a pile being given away by my former Head-of-Department, and when I noticed that some of my students had an interest in mystery fiction, I pulled the book back out and read through it for ideas. For what I have been working on, it is a helpful, if slightly 'light' resource. McRobbie breaks the mystery genre down into its different elements - so chapters on such things as plot, settings and 'The Detective' - and intersperses them with original pieces of short mystery fiction. As someone who enjoys the 'whodunnit' genre, these stories are not very complicated, but then, that's not the point! Although for most of the stories I found myself going, "Well, of course its that person, they just said [insert incriminating statement here]," ...

Published in an omnibus edition: " The Murder of Roger Ackroyd "; " They Do It With Mirrors " and " Mrs. McGinty's Dead " as part of the "Agatha Christie Crime Collection" by The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd.: London, 1969. First published 1952. This is the first book of Agatha Christie's I have read to feature the character Miss Marple, an elderly woman who is an amateur detective in her own rights. Whereas I prefer the mildly amusing and idiosyncratic character Poirot, having Miss Marple as an investigator adds a different feel to the proceedings, as she is not officially investigating, and often relies on the fact that, as a seemingly innocent older woman, she can learn information without drawing attention to herself. The plot of They Do It With Mirrors takes a while to get underway - Miss Marple is sent by a friend to check on the friend's sister, Carrie Louise, for whom the friend is worried. Carrie is married to Lewis Serrocold,...