Catching up (as always)

Two books to catch up on today. Firstly, Murder by the Book: Mysteries for Bibliophiles edited by Martin Edwards. This was a Christmas present from a lovely friend.

This is another of the BLCC's anthologies of themed murder mysteries. How perfect for people who like books about books mixed with a good murder yarn! The collection has 16 stories in all and as usual the stories varied a bit but none were less than very readable and some were superb. My favourite was by an unknown author to me, Roy Vickers, and entitled A Man and His Mother-in-Law. The protagonist has married for the second time, his first wife having walked out on him. His second wife had been adopted during the war, having lost both her parents, and had become slavishly attached to her adopted mother. How this all pans out, including a murder, is a beautifully observed commentary on marriage and the people within it, and not just the couple themselves. I thought this was superbly written, I liked that it was quite long and took its time to explain how the husband was like he was and how that affected his relationships. Brilliant. I also loved, Grey's Ghost by Michael Innes. This takes part at a dinner party, wherein a bishop relates how he heard someone say in passing, 'Grey's ghost was black'. Inspector Appleby (Innes' regular detective) is present that evening and works out what was meant by that comment and how things progressed. Terrific story, I really 'must' get hold of some of the Appleby novels. I liked the cleverness of Malice Domestic by Philip MacDonald, an American story of a man who thinks his wife is poisoning him. Good twist to that one. There was a Sherlock Holmes story by S.C. Roberts, The Strange Case of the Megatherium Thefts, concerning missing books, which was pretty good. Also excellent was, The Book of Honour by John Creasy. This was set in India and was another tale which took the time to explain the background so that the reader feels very invested in the characters. My final favourite was *takes deep breath* We're Know You're Busy Writing But We Thought You Wouldn't Mind If We Dropped In For a Minute by Edmund Crispin. I should think every author would identify with this very strongly as the narrator recounts how many interruptions he gets each day, making settling down to write a book almost impossible. This was very funny, I like Crispin's Gervase Fen books anyway and this has the same trademark humour. All in all an excellent collection of very varied stories all connected with books or publishing in some way or other and I can recommend it very highly.

Lastly, Bewildering Cares by Winifred Peck. This book, first published in 1940, is another reissue published by Dean Street Press.

Camilla Lacely is a vicar's wife and the couple live and work in a small provincial town somewhere near Manchester. WW2 has begun, young men are being called up and the war effort is clicking into gear. Camilla's trials and tribulations are many. As a vicar's wife a lot is expected of her, not just commitees, supporting people with problems in the locality, church duties and such, but she also feels very strongly that her main duty is to support her husband in everything. It's endless pressure and worry but luckily she's stoical and can deal with things from a humorous point of view: she's very philosophical. This attitude is challenged somewhat on the day that the curate, Strang, preaches his pacifist views to a congregation and outrages the whole town. Camilla 'was' present but unfortunately was snatching forty winks behind a pillar and didn't hear what was said. All kinds of mayhem ensues, nastiness coming out of the woodwork, people getting on their high horses and threatening to withdraw financial support for various causes and so on. This is an excellent study of human nature, the good, the bad, and the downright unreasonable. Pettiness persists even during wartime, perhaps 'especially' in wartime. I liked Camilla, bravely 'keeping calm and carrying on' despite a lot of provocation. I don't know why but her husband annoyed me. I think I felt that the support was all one way but I suspect that's my 21st. century sensibilities talking. There's a lot of humour in the telling of this tale, somewhat in the style of The Diary of a Provincial Lady. I did get a little bogged down in ethical and religious discussions but that's a minor quibble. I loved one character who appeared only briefly but was mentioned a lot, Camilla's son, Dick, who clearly had his feet planted firmly on the ground. All in all, a good read and I'm interested enough to search out more work by Winifred Peck, and have in fact got one of her crime books on my Kindle, Arrest the Bishop?, which sounds like fun.

And soon it'll be March and we'll all be wondering where February went! I hope you're all finding some good books to read to take your mind off the difficult times we're going through.