The Man Who Loved Lions

by Ethel Lina White

In the depths of the English countryside, Sir Benjamin Watson has amassed a private zoo in the grounds of his country home, 'Ganges' - an exotic jungle filled with snakes, elephants, tigers and lions. One summer evening during the Blitz, Ann Sherborne arrives at Ganges for a long-expected reunion of university friends. As tensions mount among the reunited companions, a series of accidents involving the zoo animals leads Ann to suspect that someone among them is hatching a sinister and dangerous plot... Originally published in 1943 as part of Collins's celebrated 'Crime Club' imprint, this is an intense psychological thriller from the author of 'The Lady Vanishes'.

Genres: Mystery, British Literature, Classics

198 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1943

About the author

Ethel Lina White was a British crime writer, best known for her novel The Wheel Spins (1936), on which the Alfred Hitchcock film, The Lady Vanishes (1938), was based, and Some Must Watch (1933), on which the film The Spiral Staircase (1946) was based.

Born in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales, in 1876, White started writing as a child, contributing essays and poems to children's papers. Later she began to write short stories, but it was some years before she wrote books.

She left employment in a government job working for the Ministry of Pensions in order to pursue writing. Her writing was to make her one of the best known crime writers in Britain and the USA during the 1930s and '40s.

Her first three works, published between 1927 and 1930, were mainstream novels. Her first crime novel, published in 1931, was Put Out the Light. Although she has now faded into obscurity, in her day she was as well known as such writers like Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie.

She died in London in 1944 aged 68. Her works have enjoyed a revival in recent years with a stage adaptation of The Lady Vanishes touring the UK in 2001 and the BBC broadcast of an abridged version on BBC Radio 4 as well as a TV adaptation by the BBC in 2013.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Armin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zoo statt Zug
(Bitte vorher Klappentext/Inhaltsbeschreibung lesen)
Beim Klassentreffen in einem gruseligen Privatzoo während des zweiten Weltkriegs war ich auf eine Art Killing by Numbers mit last girl eingestellt, aber Ethel Lina White ist nicht Agatha Christie. Zum Glück!
Die Autorin ist in erster Linie als Verfasserin der Vorlage für Alfred Hitchcocks The Lady Vanishes auf die Nachwelt gekommen. Mit dem Altmeister, der mal als Synonym für Spannung galt, teilt sie eine Stärke, sie hat ebenfalls ein ausgesprochenes Händchen für Suspense, jene fatale Mischung aus Unheilsahnung und leichtem Gruseln. Dieser Faden reißt keine Sekunde bei The man who loved lions ab, da die Ermittlung von ständig neuen Fakten oder bislang übersehenen Kombinationen viel zum Lesevergnügen beiträgt, will ich hier so wenig wie möglich von den (wechselnden) Konstellationen beim Wiedersehen von sieben Collegefreunden nach sieben Jahren spoilern. Was noch folgt, steht trotzdem unter diesem Vorbehalt. Angefangen bei der Ausgangssituation: Anne Sherborne hat ihren alkoholkranken Vater, einen weltweit gefragten Ingenieur, die letzten sieben Jahre lang auf sämtliche Baustellen begleitet. Einziger Lichtblick: die Erinnerungen an die College-Zeit und den Club der sullen souls, mit 16 war sie das Küken des Kreises, in dem begabte Außenseiter im Turmzimmer zusammen trafen.
Endlich Vollwaise und aller Kindespflichten ledig, findet sich die Gelegenheit zur Rückkehr in die Heimat und zum Wiedersehen mit den Jugendfreunden am Tag des Treffens. Ihre Hauptmotivation ist Stephen, der schlauen Gegenspieler des immer ein wenig irrwitzigen Gastgebers Richard. Eigentlich hatte sie vor sieben Jahren mit einer Liebeserklärung auf der Heimfahrt im Bus gerechnet, doch ihr Herzensfreund war erst gar nicht eingestiegen. Statt dessen musste sie sich der Kussversuche eines täppischen Mitglieds der Truppe erwehren.
Die Gründe für Stephens fatales Ausbleiben, die übrigens ganz in ihrem Sinne sind, wird sie im Verlauf ihres Aufenthalt im Ganges, so der Name des Landsitzes mit Privatzoo, ermitteln. Ein Hauptproblem ist: Das Küken von einst ist inzwischen die Hübscheste, alle Männlein sind hinter ihr her, tricksen sich gegenseitig aus und versuchen Anns Aufenthalt am Treffpunkt zu verkürzen, denn Stephen kommt, wenn überhaupt erst auf den letzten Drücker.
Richard ist es eigentlich egal, welche ihm nicht ganz so nahe stehende Jugendbekanntschaft als letztes Opfer einer Reihe von Unglücksfällen herhalten muss, damit er über Nacht vom Tierpfleger zum Alleinerben aufsteigt. Ann kommt gleich mehrmals als Gattin wie als Leiche in Frage, ist aber selbst ein wenig schuld daran, trotz allerlei vorsorglicher Rauswürfe findet sie immer wieder einen Zugang oder ein Versteck, um ihren Liebsten nicht zu verpassen, der einfach nicht von seiner Dienststelle weg kommt. In ihrer Hartnäckigkeit in Liebesdingen gleicht sie der Heldin in The Lady vanishes, die gegen alle Widerstände auf ihrer Begegnung mit der alten Dame beharrt und den Zug nach der Vermissten durchsucht. Wie im verfilmten Thriller gibt es dabei keine echten Freunde, sondern allenfalls hilfreiche Menschen, so lange es die eigene Interessenlage zulässt. Zugleich unsichere Kantonisten oder potenzielle Verräter, wenn höhere Gewalt eintritt oder auch nur die Konvention ihre Rechte geltend macht.
Fazit: Anns Besessenheit, Stephen in dieser Nacht auf keinen Fall zu versäumen, selbst wenn sie der Versuch zum bevorzugten Mordopfer stempelt, erinnert stark an die Bemühungen der Heldin des verfilmten früheren Romans, die Dame im Zug wiederzufinden.
Durchaus möglich, dass Ethel Lina White ein One-Trick-Pony ist und mir die Variationen ihres Musters im Privatzoo gar nicht so schrecklich spannend vorgekommen wären, aber beim Erstkontakt mit ihrer Schreibe stellten sich bei mir eher Assoziationen zu Anthony Powells Tanz zur Zeitmusik ein, zumal der Krimi in derselben Gesellschaft spielt. Und ein Privatzoo mit hoher Unfallstatistik und ein paar frei laufenden Raubtieren unter Kriegsverdunkelung ist nunmal deutlich gruseliger als ein Zug. Von daher vier Sterne für meinen ersten Fall aus der Feder von Ethel Lina White. Um noch einmal auf Hitchcock zurück zu kommen: der Anteil echter Gewalt-Szenen ist in seinen Filmen vergleichsweise gering, das Bedrohungspotenzial liegt woanders, bzw. bildet den Grundton. So verhält es sich auch in The man who loved Lions, das auch unter dem Titel The man, that was n't there veröffentlicht wurde.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you know what you get if you type The Man Who Loved Lions where it says search? I can tell you what I got. First was a never heard of (by me) television program called The Man Who Liked Lions, my computer doesn't seem to know there is a difference between loving and liking. I also got that second, third, fourth, and fifth. I know more about that televion show than I ever did before, which would be learning anything at all about it, having known nothing before. But I wanted a book not a show with a different name, so I put the word book in there. Now I got Lions by Bonnie Nadzum, an elegiac and arresting novel about a young couple whose love is threatened by the arrival of an unwelcome stranger. Their words not mine, I haven't a clue what elegiac means and wouldn't use it if I did. Once again, I never heard of it, next is of Fire and Lions by Mesu Andrews, a breathtaking and intricately told story of life and love in Babylonian captivity. If that doesn't sound like something I would say it's because I didn't. A Lion in the Streets is a 1953 movie, and here's where I give up and this time I add the words Ethel Lina White, and there it is, the book I've been looking for. I was even able to buy it and read it and now review it, and all from my phone. No wonder I have constant migraines. But on to the book.

This is another book by one of my favorite authors and she's one of my favorite authors because I have fun when I'm reading her books, it's the same reason I love Charles Dickens, simply because I have fun reading his books. If there are many deep educational things I could learn from reading Dickens I don't want to, I want to have fun reading him, school wasn't fun I'd just as soon not be reminded of it. If there are deep educational things to learn in The Man Who Loved Lions it would be, don't go out alone among lions, tigers, elephants, snakes, or crocodiles with a man you are pretty sure is trying to kill you. There is more than one murderer running around this book trying to kill more than one person, although while our one murderer is concentrating on just one victim, the other doesn't seem to care who dies just as long as somebody does, and they have to do it that night.

Now all this is taking place at the home of Sir Benjamin Watson. Sir Benjamin loves lions, and giraffes and anything else that should be in a zoo, which is what his property has turned into mostly, a zoo. But still, even though there are snakes, and monkeys and crocodiles running around, still Ben lives there with his nephew Richard, and friends still visit, and neighbors, and old classmates of Richard's, so there are lots of people there to be killed and lots of wild animals around to do it.

I already said I liked the book. I didn't like the main character much, I got tired of her whining about Stephen, a man she had been in love with since she was sixteen and also a man she hadn't seen since she was sixteen. I don't think she got through a page without crying for Stephen, I was ready to throw her to the lions. Then there was one of the murder ideas. It seems if you take a mostly tame elephant, as tame as they get in a zoo being fed and petted by Ben everyday, you take him and throw a mouse in front of him and he will go crazy with fear, run wild and trample anything in his path to death. I am going to have to look up whether an elephant is afraid of a mouse. To see if it worked read the book. Good luck finding it. Happy reading.

[Shiloah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Love the ending!

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...

[dmayr · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot was a mess, the murder happened only at the very end, but I'll always love Ethel Lina White's writing.

[Andy Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a bit of a mess. I had read The Lady Vanishes and seem to remember enjoying it. I certainly enjoyed the film. This has a good collection of ingredients for an interesting pulp noir of ths 40s. Gothic house with a private zoo, a reunion planned long ago, a collection of eccentric characters at a dinner party, a heroine who seems like she may be engaging. Hard to know how it all goes so wrong. There is a very weakly motivated plot to inherit some money. Some suspenseful moments arise as the plotter tries to remove the heroine and one other who has turned up for the reunion but for a reason that is far from clear. Finally the plotter is killed in a bonkers murder by a co-conspirator again for the vaguest reason setting up a murder mystery at the end of the book that lasts about 30 seconds. Then the heroine's love interest turns up in the last paragraph! If you want to read The Lady Vanishes, start with that as this may put you off the effort.

[Adam Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully sinister and suspense-filled mystery, involving a cult reunion, a private zoo and a wartime blackout. It's clear from the beginning that someone will end up dead - and White keeps dropping hints to remind you of that - but there's a tantalising wait to find out who, why, how and when. The ending is a bit mixed, but satisfying. It was especially enjoyable reading it in a Crime Club first edition.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing story. I found Ann, the main character, to be an enigma. I never quite trusted her. Her decisions were at times questionable.

The best part of the entire story was the setting. Ethel Lina White’s ability to take that setting and create all things eerie was my favorite part.