Books from Orkney – Birsay Books

When we went on holiday to the Orkney Islands last month I didn’t really expect to find any books to buy there, but Jack did some research and discovered Birsay Books, on the part of the mainland called Birsay as you would expect. It was surprisingly good, for me anyway. If you’re looking for modernish books you wouldn’t be so impressed.

Books Bought at Birsay Books, Orkney

I bought:

Castaway Camp by M.E. Atkinson (I haven’t read anything by this author but somebody recommended her)

Tropical Issue by Dorothy Dunnett (a mystery)

A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep by Rumer Godden (her autobiography)

The Glad Eye by Ranger Gull (I bought this one for the cover, isn’t it great?!)

Swing, Brother, Swing by Ngaio Marsh (I’ve already read and reviewed this one)

Winter at Thrush Green by Miss Read (this one I got at a charity shop in Kirkwall)

A Certain Smile by Francois Sagan (it’s possible that I read this one back in the 1970s)

The Best of Rosemary Sutcliff ( this contains three of her books but I only had one of them)

Not a bad haul I think. Have you read any of them?

Swing, Brother, Swing by Ngaio Marsh

Swing, Brother, Swing by Ngaio Marsh was first published in 1949. It’s an Inspector Alleyn mystery.

Lord Pastern is a well-known member of the English aristocracy, notorious for his outrageous behaviour, which all seems to be aimed at embarrassing his long-suffering wife. He lurches from one obsession to the next and in this tale it’s jazz that has grabbed his attention. He fancies himself as a jazz drummer and is part of a band called Breezy Bellairs and his Boys.

The band members seem to have been chosen for their eccentricities, they all like to make a big noise but the music isn’t enough for them. They plan to put on a bit of a show with a gun firing blanks being
used as part of the entertainment, of course, nothing goes to plan.

One of ‘the boys’ is Carlos Rivera and he has his eyes on Felicite de Suze, Lord Pastern’s step-daughter. She’s quite keen on him, but it’s not going to go down well with the family. Rivera is obviously not the sort that they expect to marry into the family.

This was an enjoyable read which kept me guessing.

Bookshelf Travelling in Insane Times – October the 11th

I’m still Bookshelf Travelling in Insane Times, do join in if you feel the urge! Last week I was actually travelling – and buying books, so I didn’t get around to doing this. This meme was hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness but I’m gathering the blogposts at the moment.

Books Again

This week the bookshelf is in the main guest bedroom again. It’s inhabited mainly by crime fiction, Ngaio Marsh (not a favourite,) Gladys Mitchell who is okayish in parts but I can’t understand why she made her detective Mrs Bradley so ghastly, Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver is much more likeable in fact I think I prefer her to Miss Marple – is that blasphemy?

The Alfred Hitchcock book Murder Racquet is a collection of short stories and amazingly I haven’t heard of any of the authors which might be why I haven’t got around to reading it.

I love Louise Penny’s Three Pines books but I usually borrow them from the library, I can’t remember why I felt the need to buy Still Life.

Landed Gently by Alan Hunter is unread, I don’t think I’ve read any of his books but this one is apparently a whodunit in the classic tradition and even has a floor plan at the front, published in 1957 it sounds right up my street.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, not vintage crime but I love the film and enjoyed the book too although it is a wee bit different.

Are you bookshelf travelling this week?

A Bluestocking Knits

A Son of the Rock

Bitter Tea and Mystery

Murder Under the Christmas Tree – short stories

 Murder Under the Christmas Tree cover

Murder Under the Christmas Tree is a compilation of short stories by well known authors, all set around about Christmas – as you would expect.

The first story is The Necklace of Pearls by Dorothy L. Sayers. I’m quite a fan of Sayers but I have to admit that I was a wee bit disappointed with this one as I guessed the solution fairly quickly.

The other contributers are Ian Rankin, Margery Allingham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Val McDermid, Ellis Peters, Edmund Crispin, G.K. Chesterton, Carter Dickson and Ngaio Marsh. The sleuths include Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey, Cadfael, Father Brown, Rebus and others you will recognise.

It’s quite a collection of authors and I’m sure there’s something for everyone here, well everyone who enjoys a good murder around the festive season – as I do!

I read this book for the Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge.

Death in a White Tie by Ngaio Marsh

Death in a White Tie cover

Death in a White Tie by the New Zealand author Ngaio Marsh was first published in 1938 but my copy is a 1949 reprint. It’s a Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn mystery and the setting is London high society where Lady Alleyn, the detective’s mother is going to be attending debutante balls, chaperoning the daughter of friends who are living abroad. It’s not something she’s looking forward to, the whole process is exhausting and she is a lot older than she was when she did it for her own daughter. It throws her into the society of old friends and it soon becomes apparent that not all is as it should be.

Alleyn is aware that there’s a blackmailer operating in London High Society, he has inside information and ends up attending some of the functions his mother goes to, in an attempt to unmask the blackmailer.

I enjoyed Death in a White Tie which kept me guessing and in some ways Marsh’s writing reminded me of A Game of Thrones as she had no hesitation in introducing the reader to a loveable character – only to dispatch him violently. That’s very different from Christie’s and even Sayers’s writing where you often don’t meet the victim until the body is found, or they are particularly unlikeable people.

I was interested in this passage:

How many of these women were what he still thought of as ‘virtuous’? And the debutantes? They had gone back to chaperones and were guided and guarded by women, many of whose own private lives would look ugly in this flood of hard lights that had been let in on Lord Robert’s world. The girls were sheltered by a convention for three months but at the same time they heard all sorts of things that would have horrified and bewildered his sister Mildred at their age. And he wondered if the Victorian and Edwardian eras had been no more than freakish incidents in the history of society and if their proprieties had been as artificial as the paint on a modern woman’s lips.

I think that’s a fair description of the Victorian and Edwardian era, but those years lasted so long that people forgot how bawdy and raucous society had been in earlier times. Writing like Chaucer’s would probably have shocked the Victorians rigid. Is all that Victorian prurience something we have to blame Prince Albert for? Was it the upsurge of a middle class due to industrialisation in Britain? Just wondering.

I know, I wandered again, but it’s an interesting subject. Getting back to the book, I think this is the best Ngaio Marsh book I’ve read so far.

Death at the Dolphin by Ngaio Marsh

Death at the Dolphin

This book is titled Killer Dolphin in the US and was first published in 1967, I bought it in a second-hand bookshop in Worcester and it cost me all of £1 – not bad when you consider that the original 1967 price was 18s. 0d. Remember, there were 20 shillings in each pound sterling.

Anyway, I haven’t read anything by Ngaio Marsh for years, so long that I couldn’t even tell you what I have read, but I seem to remember that they were just a teeny wee bit racist in language, always a bit off putting even when books were written in the 1930s. However by 1967 her language seemed to have improved and I must say that I really did enjoy this one, despite it having quite a modern setting, the 1930s are really my favourite vintage crime era.

Peregrine Jay is a young playwright living in London and having a reasonably successful career but when he sees a derelict theatre languishing unloved near his flat, he is determined to bring it back to life. The Dolphin Theatre is his dream project and with the help of Mr Conducis, a rich businessman, the theatre reopens. Then there’s a murder which is investigated by Inspector Alleyn of Scotland Yard and his sidekick ‘Bre’r’ Fox. The whole theatre company is under suspicion.

If you like reading books with a theatre company setting then you’ll probably enjoy this one. Other books with a theatrical setting which I’ve enjoyed are :

The Good Companions by J.B. Priestley

An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge