Once again, it's time to have a chatter about the books read since the last 'On The Book Piles', which didn't quite get to have posts of their own for various reasons. Lots of books were read on coaches this time round!
'Till Death Do Us Part' by John Dickson Carr (1944)
There is an idea that this could be the best John Dickson Carr mystery instead of 'The Hollow Man'. As a response, I will merely point out that 'The Hollow Man' got an entire post, and this just part of one. For a long time, you wonder if there's going to be any mystery at all, so gloomy is the prevailing mood against Lesley Grant, the accused bride-to-be of the book's protagonist, Richard Markham. It does, however all turn around satisfactorily when the deceased (supposedly due to suicide) accuser is debunked by much delayed arrival of the series's sleuth, Dr Gideon Fell, with an Important Fact. The shenanigans then commence properly. It's a well-paced, well-built, and nicely judged impossible crime, but what it gains in prose style over 'The Hollow Man', it loses in intricacy and impossibility. So, a good mystery, but not a puzzle box to be savoured. However, it does mean more John Dickson Carr will have to be sampled...
'Somebody Owes Me Money' by Donald E Westlake (1969)
A solid but middle of the pack crime story from super-writer Donald E Westlake. The prose is excellent, as it always is, showing just what has been lost over the history of written storytelling, but the plot is a bit scanty. Westlake pulls it off, though, in this story about a New York cab driver who goes to collect some winnings from his bookmaker friend, but discovers a body and ends up in a tug of war between two rival gangs of mobsters out to find out who did the crime. Not quite unremarkable, but also not quite recommendable. It's somewhere in the corridor of uncertainty. Nice writing, though. Westlake was one of the best.
'God Save The Mark' by Donald E Westlake (1967)
This is a brilliant novel, and much better than 'Somebody Owes Me Money'. Apparently this is one of the novels that launched the Westlake trajectory toward humour in his work, and also helped to set up his paradigm of using loser protagonists. It's just a bit too slight to get a post of its own, but is well worth reading, as we see the story of perpetual 'sucker' (magnet for confidence tricksters) Fred Fitch unfold after he inherits a large fortune from a long socially exiled uncle and becomes embroiled in a rather unusual thriller. There are corrupt cops, brassy broads, lovely ladies, more confidence tricks than you can count, and suspicions cast upon everyone in the narrative. It's a big, broad wonderful mess. Westlake is a brilliant writer of things which are almost substantial classics, but end up being merely fun reads. Very good con story. Will you spot the turn?
'Three Hearts And Three Lions' by Poul Anderson (1961)
This is a surprisingly short novel, which somehow manages to fit far more into its duration than many stories twice its size. It has some things in common with Twain's 'Connecticut Yankee', as a Danish resistance fighter vanished from a Second World War battle, only to appear in a different medieval fantasy world, which has a lot in common with his own. However, why does he keep remembering things from this new world, and why are forces gathering to stop him at all costs? It's a potent mix of fairy tales, Carolingian mythology, high romance and classy writing, which manages to condense down a number of very precise episodes into an overall narrative. Anderson also, to his credit, writes the whole thing as a prologue to a larger story that we never get to read, and forms parallels between the second world war and the novel's otherworldly conflict between Order and Chaos. It's a simple and wonderful little novel, and highly recommended. It's nice to have so many nicely formed characters in less than two hundred pages, and such veering fantasy and darker elements. It's a much better experience than that had with Anderson's 'The Broken Sword'.
'Kentucky Thriller' by Lauren St John (2012)
This, the third in the Laura Marlin mysteries, is well up to the standard of the first books in the series, as we jaunt through another thriller for younger readers. As an adult reader, there are sometimes events so signposted as to be frustrating, but it's a good read. Another one to go in the recommended pile for my students, I think. If you haven't guessed, this one is about horses and features a trip to Kentucky, just in time for their Derby. There is crookedness galore!
O.
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