Reading in Reykjavík

Since I have already posted about the audio version of another Marsh detective novel, Artists in Crime , which was read by a different narrator, I figured I would do one for this one as well, just to compare the narrators. There have been a number of different audiobook narrators for the books in this series, but Philip Franks and James Saxon have each narrated more of them than any of the other narrators and therefore I decided it would be interesting to compare their styles and techniques. As I mentioned in the previous post , I was mainly happy with Philip Franks' narration of Artists in Crime, with the sole exception of his pronunciation of Roderick Alleyn's last name. His reading was even and the voices just different enough to tell them apart, and his pacing was good. James Saxon, who narrated this book, pronounces Alleyn's name the way I have always thought it should be pronounced, i.e. the same way as Allen , which is good. Saxon has (or rather had - he die...

Published in 1931, Police at the Funeral is the fourth of the Albert Campion detective novels by Margery Allingham. As I haven't read the previous novels and it has been along time since I read the only other Campion novel I have read , I don't feel equipped to comment much on Campion as a character, except to say that he's quite superficially developed at this point and he and Lord Peter Wimsey might well be first cousins: both are charming and aristocratic (although Campion's status is only hinted at by other characters - he is, in fact operating under an assumed name) and can look deceptively silly and vacuous when they want to, to the detriment of anyone who has to match wits with them. He also slips quite adroitly into a Bertie Wooster type role when he is trying to lull people into thinking him inconsequential and stupid. Anyhow, the story is about a family of middle-aged and elderly eccentrics who live in a house belonging to a formidable old lady who is mo...

Original title: Maigret tend un pieg e. Translated by Daphne Woodward (1965).  This is the first Maigret book I have read in ages.  Opening a Maigret novel is like visiting old friends, not just Maigret, Madame Maigret, Janvier and all the rest, but also Paris.  In this book, we jump into the middle of an investigation of serial murders in Montmartre and Maigret is about to set a trap for the killer. It doesn't go quite to plan - he escapes, but does leave behind a piece of evidence that will lead the police to him.  Like most other Maigret books I have read, this isn't a whodunnit. In the Maigret books, the identity of the killer isn't often hidden from the reader until the last chapter, and instead we get to see how Maigret figures it out (although sometimes the killer is known from the beginning). Then the rest of the book is about either proving it or applying so much psychological pressure that the killer gives up and confesses. In this book, there...

This isn't a review of the book, as much as of the narrator of the audio book version. Artists in Crime is among of the better of Ngaio Marsh's Chief Inspector Alleyn novels, and one of the ones I occasionally reread - not so much for the murder plot, which is gruesome and more than a little melodramatic, albeit clever - but for the romance. It's not a romance novel per se, but the side plot concerns Alleyn's very tentative courtship of his future wife, artist Agatha Troy. They had met in a previous book, where he was interested in and attracted to her while she was in equal parts intrigued by him and annoyed with herself for being so. In this book we get to see how she begins to accept that she has feelings for him, and he to have some hope that she may reciprocate his feelings for her. It is not the same breathtaking romance arc as in contemporary author Dorothy L. Sayer's detective novels, to which some have drawn parallels, but is quite satisfying even so. ...

Status: Rearead. Permanent collection. Genre: Murder mystery; detective fiction. Did I mention I'm on an Agatha Christie kick? When I picked up Cards on the Table for the What's in a Name reading challenge it had been ages since I had read any Christie and I had forgotten how delightful her books are. So I decided to read some more Christie. Since I own three Avenel omnibus volumes of Christie's books, each with 5 novels in it, plus several single books, I have plenty to choose from and began with one I don't recall reading before: Thirteen at Dinner (aka Lord Edgware Dies ). One of the Avenel volumes contains Poirot stories, another Miss Marple stories, and the third is called Agatha Christie's Detectives, and that's what I'm making my way through right now. It contains one Miss Marple story, two Poirots, one Tommy and Tuppence story and one Superintendent Battle story. I have already finished two of the books, and have three left, all of them ones...

Book status: Reread. Permanent collection. Genre: Murder mystery; amateur detective fiction. It‘s funny how some books can stay in one‘s memory for ages, with even tiny plot details remembered, while others, equally good, seem to simply evaporate from one‘s brain. This is one of those books. I remembered nothing about it, not a single thing, which is good, because the main objective of this kind of mystery, besides being entertaining, is to engage the reader in trying to solve the case ahead of the sleuth. The narrator of the book is Leonard Clement, the vicar of St. Mary Mead. At the beginning of the book he and several other people express wishes that Colonel Lucius Protheroe, the local magistrate and churchwarden, would die. Protheroe is shown to be an unpleasant man, a harsh judge, domestic tyrant and quarrelsome to boot. Everyone is shocked but no one grieves much when he is found shot dead in the study at the vicarage, where he had been waiting for the vicar to return from...

The cover of my copy. Genre: Historical murder mystery; detective fiction.   Themes: Murder, secrets, false identities, false pretences, unexpected visitors, movies, young love.  Reading challenge: What's in a Name 2016 Challenge book no.: 4/6, a book with an item of clothing in the title. The titular mink (a coat) is the property of one of the characters in this frothy and funny country-house murder mystery. (You will have to read the book if you want to know how and why it got mutilated). The Affair of the Mutilated Mink and the books that preceded it and followed it, The Affair of the Blood-stained Egg Cosy and The Affair of the 39 Cufflinks , have been justifiably called tributes to the Golden Era mystery, and one quickly realises that it doesn't take place in some unspecified version of the 1930s, but specifically the 1930s of the detective novels of Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Michael Innes, whose detectives, Wimsey, Alleyn and Appleby, ...

Genre: Historical detective fiction, murder mystery, cosy mystery. Themes : M urder, s ocial reputations, unhappy marriages, I originally  chose the third book in the Beau Brummell mysteries as the book with an item of clothing in the title for the What's in a Name Challenge . However, I prefer, whenever possible, to read series books in the correct reading order, so I decided to read this, the first book in the series, as a preliminary to The Bloodied Cravat . I read this one through, but The Bloodied Cravat was a DNF for me (see the glossary)and I ended up with another book for the challenge. This is quite a frothy mystery in the historical/cosy sub-genre. A loathsome old aristocratic woman is murdered by adding poison to her nightly drink of warm milk and the prime suspect is her lady's companion, a young gentlewoman recommended to her by the Duchess of York. Brummell is in love with the Duchess and will do just about anything she asks of him, but as she is marr...

Alternative title:  Lord Edgware Dies (original British title) Genre: Detective fiction, murder mystery. Themes: Murder, identity switch, sociopathy. When I finished reading Cards on the Table I realised I only had one book left to finish the five-novel Poirot omnibus it is in, so I sat down and read Thirteen at Dinner in order to finish the book.  The plot (if you aren't already familiar with it, from book or film) revolves around a murder apparently committed by a woman who has no fewer than 12 witnesses to give her an alibi, and yet was seen at the scene of the crime at the same time. Poirot, having already become involved before the crime was committed, is commissioned by Inspector Japp of the Scotland Yard to investigate, and does so, aided by his friend Hastings and the police. I love the noir feel to these covers. When I called Cards on the Table a proper mystery I was, of course, referring to the fact that I haven't touched a pure mystery novel in a...

Genre: Detective fiction, murder mystery. Themes: Murder, secrets.  Reading challenge: What's in a Name 2016 Challenge book no.: 2/6, a book with a type of furniture in the title. It's been ages since I read a proper mystery, and this is definitely one of those.   It begins, like several of Christie's other stories, with a dinner party that ends in murder.  This is a murder-magnet tale, i.e. one of those Poirot books where he is present, or as good as, when a murder takes place and the police ask him to assist in solving it, but he is still the principal detective (of course).  What's interesting about this story is that Poirot has no fewer than three Watsons to assist him, or rather: they work together to solve the case, with facts found out by each contributing to Poirot being able to work out the truth. Two of those Watsons, Colonel Race and Superintendent Battle, are also Christie detectives in their own right (the former in Sparkling Cyanid...