Tag Archives: Penguin books

Madame Claire by Susan Ertz

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Madame Claire by Susan Ertz was first published in 1923 but my copy is a Penguin Books from a boxed set of facsimiles of the first ten Penguin books, published to mark Penguin’s 50th anniversary. I got this one from a secondhand bookshop so I don’t have the other nine books in the set. It cost me all of £2.

I really enjoyed this book, Madame Claire seemed such a sensible and wise elderly woman, named Madame Claire by her adult grandchldren, but Lady Gregory to more formal people. She is a widow.

After Madame Claire’s son Eric married she opted to give up her large house and move into a small suite in a Kensington hotel.  She sensibly refused to move into her son and daughter-in-law’s home.  Claire  has had no contact with her daughter Connie for many years, since the recently married Connie had run off with a famous musician.  Claire has also had no contact from her husband’s best friend Stephen for almost twenty years, he had rashly asked her to marry him too soon after her husband’s death, and her refusal had sent him off in a huff. So when she unexpectedly gets a letter from him she’s happy to renew the friendship.

Connie also resurfaces, and the grandchildren Judy and Noel hare off to France to see her, they’re agog to meet this aunt who had “thrown her hat over the mill” all those years ago

As ever, I’m not giving a blow by blow account of the book which has various plots, a plethora of flawed characters, and a lot about the unfairness of society and its perceived constraints. With age Claire has garnered insight into the behaviour of her family members and others. I have to say that I was incensed that Gordon, the eldest grandchild would inherit everything while Noel his younger brother would have to shift for himself, despite losing an arm in WWI, and of course Judy will get nothing as she’s expected to make a good marriage! I hate unfairness.

I’ll definitely be looking for more books by Susan Ertz.

 

 

 

Mr Campion’s Farthing by Youngman Carter

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Mr Campion's Farthing cover

Mr Campion’s Farthing by Youngman Carter was published in 1969, three years after his wife Margery Allingham’s death. He had completed her unfinished book Cargo of Eagles and decided to write more books featuring Albert Campion, but he only wrote two before his own death. Apparently he had always helped out with the plots of Allingham’s books, I can easily believe that as this book is certainly not close to being the worst I’ve read. It’s very much of its time, featuring Russians and an attempt by one of the characters to defect during a trip to London. That sort of thing often seemed to be happening in the 1960s and 70s as I recall – back in the ‘good old days’!

Anyway – this book is fairly well written although a bit bizarre in parts, but it would have been better if Campion hadn’t been involved at all. He’s obviously used as a means of obtaining more sales. In this book though Campion has reverted to being the young Campion of the early days before he matured and actually developed a personality. It’s not enough just to describe a character as having large horn-rimmed spectacles, and more or less leave it at that. I’ll probably give this one a 3 on Goodreads but 2.5 would be nearer the mark.

A Private View by Michael Innes

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Unfortunately Amazon doesn’t have an image of the classic Penguin edition. My copy is an original which I was lucky enough to buy very cheaply along with a whole load of others in Edinburgh.

This book was first published in 1952 and I would say that it does have plenty of period atmosphere about it, which is always a pleasure to me. It’s liberally sprinkled with Humbers and Austin Sevens cars and mentions a florin in the very first page. Ah, the nostalgia of it all. If you aren’t that old you might not know that a florin was the name of a 2 shilling coin in the pre decimal days. I well remember getting a couple of them for my pocket-money in the 1960s. It is 10p in new money.

Anyway, back to the book. I really enjoyed this one. Appleby has been elevated to the dizzy heights of Assistant Commissioner of Police and has been given a knighthood.

Sir John and his wife Lady Appleby (who is an artist) visit a private view of the memorial exhibition of Gavin Limbert, a young artist who has recently been found dead in his flat, from a gunshot wound. Whilst at the exhibition one of the paintings is stolen and so begins the mystery involving more murders and lots of intrigue which I’m not going to elaborate here.

Lady Appleby, otherwise known as Judith does a fair bit of sleuthing in this story and there is also quite a lot of humour in it, always welcome, I think!

The night club in the story is called the Thomas Carlyle, a nod from one Scottish author to another. I can just hear Carlyle ‘birling’ in his grave.

Another character in the book is Moe Steptoe, a second-hand/junk dealer who even has a yard with double doors as in Steptoe and Son. This character was written at least 10 years before Ray Galton and Alan Simpson came up with Albert Steptoe. I can’t help thinking that one of them must have read A Private View and then forgotten about it and used the character and situation.

If you’re into vintage crime then you’ll probably enjoy this one and it’s also a very quick read at just 199 pages.

I do have a soft spot for vintage Penguin books. I know that the covers are very plain, but to me they are understated and classy!