A couple of crime titles

Catching up on reviews with a couple of crime titles today. First up, The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie.

Father Gorman is called in to minister the last rites to a dying woman: she has something she wants to tell him before she dies. On the way home he stops at a coffee shop for a drink and writes a list of people's names down on a piece of paper. Before he can reach home he will be dead. Several people on this list are already dead, supposedly of natural causes. The godson of one of them, Mark Easterbrook, becomes suspicious and starts to investigate with the occasional help of author, Ariadne Oliver. Investigations lead to a village with an old pub by the name of The Pale Horse, although it's no longer a pub but is lived in by three single women. Village gossip has them down as witches but surely this is nonsense? When people start to die almost by remote control, Easterbrook takes matters into his own hands, putting himself and, more importantly, his girlfriend, into extreme danger. Fantastic Fiction lists this as an Ariadne Oliver book but to be honest she's not really in it a lot. It's really a standalone and as such I found it works very well and I enjoyed it a lot. It has a nice supernatural bent, a bit of romance which doesn't interfere with the plot, and I had no idea who the culprit was or how it was done. It also has an excellent sense of both London and the gossipy, insular atmosphere of an English village in the early 1960s. I had no idea until Jo at The Book Jotter left a comment on my last post that the BBC has dramatised it for showing over the Christmas. To be honest I haven't liked their recent adaptations but will give this a go and hope they haven't modernised the life out of it.


Lastly, The Cornish Coast Murder by John Bude. This is my 28th. book for Bev's Calendar of Crime challenge covering the March category of 'Primary action takes place in this month'. It's also my 23rd. books for Bev's Mount TBR 2019.

Reverand Dodd is the vicar of the village of Boscawen on the north coast of Cornwall. He likes the quiet life and enjoys good food and evenings by the fire reading detective novels. When a local magistrate, Julius Tregarthen, is found dead in his home, shot through the head, Dodd is horrified but also intrigued and can't stop himself helping the police in the investigation. Luckily, Inspector Bigswell of the local force does not mind, in fact welcomes the help as the case is very complicated. The dead man's neice, Ruth, who lived with him, has been seeing a local author and Tregarthen had objections to the relationship. Did the author kill him? Dodd thinks not but all the evidence points that way so Bigswell is obliged to follow that line of enquiry. Which of them is right?

This was quite a good yarn. I loved the setting. The dead man's home is described as being on a 'ness' (a cape or headland) and practically surrounded by the Atlantic, a fantasic setting for a crime story like this and I absolutely loved it. I'm sure this is possibly because I know that region very well and am biased but even so, it was beautifully done. And the whys and the wherefores of how the murder was committed were equally complicated and interesting, 'different'. My only grouse is with the revelation of who did it. My reaction was, 'Eh?' And that's all I'm going to say apart from: 'lovely cover'.


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