Tag Archives: 1950s setting

What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley

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What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust by Alan Bradley was published by Orion in 2024 which means that there was a five year gap between this one and the previous book in the Flavia de Luce series – The Golden Tresses of the Dead. I had thought that the author might have run out of steam – or indeed life, so I was glad to hear that this one had been published.

Flavia has been left the family home Buckhouse after her father’s unexpected death. Her two older sisters weren’t at all happy about that, but it means that things go on much as before for Flavia and for the staff who help to run the house – Dogger and Mrs Mullett the cook  – in truth Flavia is closer to those two than she is to her sisters who are almost completely absent from this book.  A younger cousin called Undine has joined the household, she’s a bit of a handful, even for Flavia, she’s a law unto herself so she supplies some entertainment, but I feel that she doesn’t make up for the lack of snarky banter between Flavia and her older sisters.

When Major Greyleigh, one of the villagers is found dead in his kitchen it’s Mrs Mullett who is suspected of poisoning him. She gave him mushrooms that she had foraged from the woods and she wonders if some of them had been poisoned. It turns out that the Major and Mrs Mullett had had a romantic relationship years before in their youth, but Flavia can’t believe that she could be a murderer.

This tale takes a very unexpected turn towards the end, for me anyway. I enjoyed it although there were some aspects that annoyed me. The setting is 1950s England and everything feels authentic, the suddenly the reader is confronted with American spellings such as tire, color, I didn’t take note of the others. I was particularly annoyed by the word ‘purse’ being used to mean a handbag more than once.

“She rumaged in a sideboard and pulled out her purse. It was a flat Monda-go-to market  straw receptacle, good for carrying everything from a check to a chicken. She reached into the depths and dredged up a small sketchbook.”

So definitely not a small purse with just enough space for some coins and paper money then.

It just throws the reader (well me anyway) out of the setting. I was also annoyed by the use of the word foyer when it should have been hall or hallway as it was in a private home. In the UK the word foyer is reserved for theatres, cinemas, large hotels, conference centres and the like. Nit-picking maybe, but I think things like that should be picked up by an editor.

 

 

Murder at Primrose Cottage by Merryn Allingham

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Murder at Primrose Cottage

Murder at Primrose Cottage by Merryn Allingham is the third book in her Flora Steele series, but it’s the first one that I’ve read, I would probably have enjoyed it more if I had read the first two. The setting is Sussex and then Cornwall, apparently in the 1950s but to be honest there isn’t much in the way of 1950s ambience.

Flora Steele owns a bookshop in Sussex, but when her friend Jack has to go to Cornwall to research a book that he’s writing she decides to accompany him. Jack writes murder mysteries and when he receives a threatening letter just before they set off for Cornwall, he thinks it might be better if Flora stays at home, but she’s determined to go with him.

The morning after they reach their rented cottage (with separate bedrooms) Flora discovers their landlord’s body in the orchard. The locals are quick to point the finger at Mercy Dearlove, the local witch or ‘peller’, and the police don’t seem at all interested in solving the crime, so Flora and Jack oblige and do it for them, and that obviously throws them into the path of danger.

I think the Cornish setting was quite realistic, there seemed to be quite a lot of rain and I remember that from the one time we travelled to that far end of England, as usual everyone said we should have been there the previous week!

I am of course a bit of a nit-picker when it comes to details in books, so I was annoyed that the author seems to think that grammar schools have fees – they don’t and never have had, you get in by academic merit. I was also puzzled by the use of torch and a flashlight in the same sentence as if they are two different things, when they are the same thing with flashlight obviously being the US word for what we call an electric torch, although nowadays the ‘electric’ bit is dropped. But this is quite an enjoyable read anyway and I would read the next one in the series I think.

My thanks to the publisher Bookouture who sent me a digital copy via NetGalley for review.

Murder Most Vile by Eric Brown

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The setting is 1957 London and the private detective and sometime author Donald Langham has been approached by a wealthy elderly retired businessman Vernon Lombard. He wants Langham to investigate the disappearance of his favourite son who is an artist. Lombard seems to be besotted with Christopher while he despises his younger son and treats his daughter as a dogsbody.

When Langham visits the artists’ colony where Christopher had been living it’s evident that all the other artists really disliked him, and with good reason. When a body is discovered it seems there are plenty of possible murderers.

Meanwhile Langham’s associate Ryland is investigating the disapperance of a champion racing greyhound which belongs to Arnold Grayson who had been a Fascist leader before WW2, and Ryland’s father had been involved in the mob violence that had ensued in the famous “Battle” of Cable Street. The whole thing turns into a nightmare for Ryland.

This is a really enjoyable read although I would have liked a bit more of Maria (Dupre), Donald Langham’s wife. I think they’re a really good partnership and I also missed Langham’s literary agent, Charles, who doesn’t feature at all in this one.

Thank you to Severn House who sent me a digital copy of this book via NetGalley.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

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The setting of The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles is 1954 Nebraska, and 18 year old Emmett Watson has just been driven home by a warden. Emmett has just finished serving a year long stretch at a work farm, his punishment for inadvertently killing someone. It isn’t long before Emmett discovers that two of the other inmates have hitched a ride to his home, hiding inside the boot/trunk of the warden’s car.

Emmett had had big plans for his release. With his mother having left home years before and his father’s recent death coupled with the fact that the bank had just foreclosed on the family farm, Emmett has nothing to stop him from chasing his dream of taking his younger brother Billy and driving west to California where he plans to start his own business. Farming isn’t for him.

The unexpected and unwanted arrival of the two inmates who have absconded throws all Emmett’s plans into the air. A lot happens over the next ten days but with remarkable calm he manages to cope with all of the problems that his sometime friends cause him, mainly because Emmett is determined never to act rashly again as that is what had led to him being at the work farm/jail in the first place.

The Lincoln Highway is well written and I enjoyed it, although not as much as the author’s previous books A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility, both of which I really loved.

I was very happy to be sent a digital copy of this book for review by NetGalley via the publisher Viking. Thank you to both.

Murder at Standing Stone Manor by Eric Brown

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Murder at Standing Stone Manor cover

Murder at Standing Stone Manor by Eric Brown is the eighth book in his Langham and Dupre mystery series. Donald and Maria have just moved from London into Yew Tree Cottage where they have a distant view of Standing Stone Manor from across their snow-covered garden. The villagers of Ingoldby in Suffolk are mainly very welcoming, but it seems that Professor Robertshaw who owns the manor can be a bit of a thorny character. When Donald is invited to the manor he’s surprised that the professor is very affable, but he wants help from Donald to get to the bottom of something strange.

The professor is an archaologist and he’s been digging on land that apparently doesn’t belong to him and obviously that’s causing tension, particularly from the man who believes the land is his. But Robertshaw’s own household is not a comfortable place to be. His wife Xandra is seriously ill and is being nursed by her niece Nancy who would otherwise be homeless. Xandra’s son Randall is arrogant and bullying towards Nancy, as is the professor, and they are both especially obnoxious to Nancy’s friend, an ex-RAF man who is living rough in an old caravan.

When the professor is found dead there are quite a few people in the neighbourhood who would have been glad to see the back of him and of course Donald and Maria sort it all out.

The book is set in the 1950s and Brown does manage to evoke that era well. I enjoyed the mystery which I suppose comes under the category of cosy, and there are some really likeable characters, not just Donald and Maria. I do wish that we could have more of Charles who is Donald’s agent and appeared more in the earlier books, I really liked him. I don’t think it’s necessary to read the others in this series although if you can get a hold of them then you should definitely give them a go.

Thank you to Canongate Books/Severn House and NetGalley who sent me a digital copy of this book for review.

Beneath the Abbey Wall by A.D. Scott

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Beneath the Abbey Wall by A.D. Scott is the third in this murder mystery series which is set in Inverness in the 1950s.

Again we’re back at the offices of a local newspaper – The Highland Gazette. Mrs Smart is a mainstay of the organisation and when she is found dead – murdered – the whole place is thrown into confusion. Mrs Smart more or less ran the place, without them really realising it.

Joanne Ross, one of the reporters, is now separated from her abusive husband, it’s a big step for a mother to have thrown her husband out, in a community where women are supposed just to put up with things.

The police are pretty useless and it’s left up to the newspaper staff to investigate Mrs Smart’s murder. During their probing all sorts of secrets come out, in fact nothing is as it seems, not even Joanne who seems so strong and sensible, it now looks like she is going to make the same mistake she did before. There’s no doubt that her brains turn to mush at the sight of a handsome man, no matter how he behaves towards her.

I enjoyed this mystery and the setting. There are quite a few likeable characters, I had an idea who the culprit was but these books are about more than the crime. They’re about how women were viewed in 1950s Scotland and how attitudes began to change, slowly. I’m looking forward to the next book and finding out what happens with McAllister and Joanne.

Although A.D. Scott doesn’t live in Scotland now she is very definitely a Scot and I read this one for the Read Scotland 2016 Challenge.

The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh

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The Late Scholar cover

The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh and published in 2013 is one of those books in which she has taken the Dorothy L. Sayers characters, Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey and written a tale, supposedly in the style of Sayers. I read the first one which Walsh wrote, actually she finished a book which Sayers had begun, and I wasn’t too convinced by it as I recall.

But either I’m getting less fussy or this one was better. Set in 1953, Peter is now the Duke of Denver due to the death of his elder brother and part of his duties is to be the ‘visitor’ of an Oxford University college, St Severins.

There has been quite a lot of upset at the college between two warring factions of fellows. Some want to sell a rare book which may have been owned by King Alfred, and some of the writing in it may even be by the king. The other faction want to sell the book so that some land can be bought as a money making opportunity for the college.

The voting for and against has been at a deadlock and it seems that in desperation someone has taken to murder as a way of winning the vote. Harriet and Peter, with the help of Bunter of course sort things out.

Jill Paton Walsh does a good job of writing the characters, albeit they are less witty, mainly because they are now married, the storyline lacks the ‘will they won’t they’ sparkle of the earlier Sayers books. Peter and Harriet are now an old married couple with almost grown up sons, the chase has been long won and Peter doesn’t have to dress up in a harlequin suit again. A shame really as it was fun when Harriet kept turning his offers of marriage down. Especially as a large amount of the female readers would have jumped at the chance to marry someone like him, including Sayers herself.

Murder at the Chase by Eric Brown

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Murder at the Chase by Eric Brown is the second book in the Langham and Dupre mystery series. These books tick a lot of boxes for me as I enjoy the 1950s setting, this one begins as a locked room mystery – something else which I like – and there’s an English village location.

It’s not absolutely necessary to have read the first book in this series Murder by the Book but it is preferable I think. You can read my thoughts on that one here.

It’s July 1955 and the writer Donald Langham has just about plucked up courage to ask Maria Dupre to marry him but he’s planning a romantic setting in which to do the deed, he’s taking her off to rural Suffolk.

Just as they are about to leave for their trip Langham gets a phone call from Alastair Endicott asking him for help to track down his father who seems to have gone missing, despite his study door and window being locked. Edward Endicott had been working on the biography of a Victorian Satanist called Vivian Stafford, a some time resident of Humble Barton, the small Suffolk village where the Endicotts live. Vivian Stafford has apparently returned to the village, claiming to be over 120 years old and a possessor of supernatural powers.

Donald Langham realises that Humble Barton isn’t far from where they were going for their romantic break so he decides to go there and see if he can help solve the mystery.

I’m already looking forward to reading the third in this series, which is yet to be published. My only gripe with this one is that the literary agent Charles Elder doesn’t appear in it as much as I would like and not being of a romantic frame of mind I’ll be very glad when Langham and Dupre actually get hitched, then they can settle down to married bickering and banter which I find to be more entertaining than romance. This is a well written book in which Brown manages to conjure up a very believable 1950s.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

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The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley has appeared in a few of my favourite blogs and has always been adored by the readers (my pals!) so I was fairly sure that I was in no danger of finding this book to be a dud – and of course it wasn’t. In fact I’m already reading the second in the series and have the third one from the library.

Set in England in 1950, Flavia de Luce is the youngest in a family of three daughters, their mother Harriet died in a climbing accident and Flavia has no memories of her. Their father is a remote, withdrawn character, as were most fathers at that time. The girls are very much left to get on with things on their own which is something that their father might not have done if he had had an inkling of just how nasty elder sisters can be to their much younger siblings. I know because I’m a third daughter myself!

Never fear though, Flavia gets her own back, she’s a great character and with her love of chemistry it’s a brave or stupid person who crosses her. I never particularly wanted a daughter (it’s all that pink girly stuff which put me off that idea) but if I had had one I would have wanted her to be like Flavia.

When Flavia discovers a dying man in the garden she becomes involved in a mystery which had its origins years before she was born. She always seems to be a few steps ahead of the police and with the help of her trusty bike Gladys and an old family retainer called Dogger she solves everything.

There’s quite a lot of chemistry in the book and if I’m reading about something which I don’t know much about myself I’m always wondering how correct the information is. So each time a chemical was mentioned I asked my trusty resident Chemistry Ph.D guy (Jack) and I’m glad to say that it was all correct.

I enjoyed being in the company of Flavia so much that I began to read the second one in the series straight after finishing this one. Hurrah for libraries!

Murder By The Book by Eric Brown

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Eric Brown has been writing science fiction successfully for donkey’s years but Murder By The Book is his first foray into crime fiction and going by this one I certainly hope it won’t be his last. It’s published by Creme de la Crime, an imprint of Severn House Publishing.

I read far more vintage crime than contemporary crime books, mainly because I don’t go in for ultra gory descriptions, so the 1950s London setting fitted the bill for me, Brown managed to evoke the atmosphere well, not that I was there at the time mind you, but I have soaked up a fair amount of the ambience in my years of reading vintage crime. It’s also nice and bookish, involving crime writers, agents and publishers.

Charles Elder is a literary agent who confesses to Donald Langham, one of the writers that he represents, that he’s being blackmailed over compromising photos. Charles is actually a likeable character, bon viveur, gourmand and generous gent, something quite rare in literary circles. Unfortunately his Achilles’ heel is that he’s a bit of an old queen at a time when it was still illegal in the UK. Donald has had some experience of working in a detective agency in the past so he offers to try to track down the blackmailer for Charles.

Donald isn’t exactly successful and more crimes follow thick and fast when crime writers are found dead in bizarre circumstances. When Charles ends up in hospital it gives Donald the chance to get closer to Maria Dupre, Charles’s French assistant, he has fancied her from afar for years. They bond over their mutual angst over Charles. Donald is a bit slow when it comes to women it would seem.

As ever, I don’t want to say too much about the storyline, I did have an inkling as to the culprit at around the half-way or two thirds mark but it certainly didn’t detract from my enjoyment and there were plenty of twists and turns along the way which had me doubting my guess. An awful lot of tea drinking goes on in Murder By The Book, with Earl Grey being Donald’s tea of choice. So if you’re a bit of a tea Jenny too you might want to make sure that you’re well supplied with your own favourite blend of tea to accompany the book.

I found Eric Brown’s writing to be smooth and pacey, I read this one in three chunks but I would have read it all in one sitting if life hadn’t got in the way of my reading time. Although I’ve not read an awful lot of science fiction I think I might just have a go at some of his SF too.

The front cover says: A Langham and Dupre Mystery. I’m looking forward to reading the next one and the development of Donald and Maria’s relationship.