Abigail’s Comments (group member since Jan 01, 2016)

Abigail’s comments from the Reading the Detectives group.

Darn, Death on a Quiet Day is my favorite Innes mystery! I'm so sorry I missed it--but in March and April I was working 12-14-hour days seven days a week, so definitely not coming to Goodreads to check notifications.

Thanks for the offer to restore the Innes buddy reads, but if the group's interests lie elsewhere, please don't do it just for me.

And thank you, Judy, for the link to the upcoming books thread!

I’m slowly reemerging into being able to read more I’m thinking this group has given up buddy-reading its way through Michael Innes—is that the case, or have I just missed some now that Goodreads no longer sends me email? I'm trying to check my notifications more often but it's a poor substitute for the notices in my in-box.

Yes, I do think Lorac had a crush on Macdonald. It says in my edition that she used her own house as the basis for the descriptions of Aikengill, so it seemed as if she was enjoying picturing him there. To ne it went beyond just creating a likable hero.

Glad I could finally carve out the time to read a mystery! Work has been overwhelming lately. I always enjoy a Lorac, especially one set in the fells.

Have to say I marked Herdwick as the perp right from the start, based on the conversation at Aikengill. Tupper had a more obvious motive but was too yucky to be anything other than a red herring. But I’m always vague on method so it doesn’t really bother me when I’m sure whodunit, I still enjoy the journey.

One odd feature of Lorac’s Macdonald novels is how likable he is, paired with how he’s always humbly welcomed by the local constabulary. Maybe my view of law enforcement is colored by being brought up on American mystery tropes, but surely somewhere in England there’s an ambitious local policemen who wants to solve a mystery himself instead of acting as Macdonald’s dogsbody! That tendency went over the top for me with this book, when combined with Lorac’s loving descriptions of Aikengill and the neighborhood. It felt like an author who enjoys fantasizing about her main character knocking about her house—a bit self-indulgent.

I do appreciate how Lorac portrays rural people with little education as fully rounded people who can be just as smart as city folk, though.

I enjoyed this enormously. Perhaps a major factor for me was what a delightful companion Stephen was along the journey. There were certainly many improbabilities but I was having so much fun that I didn’t care.

I haven’t had time to read a mystery for a while, and was very glad I decided to join the group for this one. Definitely want to read more Berkeley.

I noticed that I wasn't receiving email from Goodreads anymore so I wrote to try to get the problem fixed and got this infuriating reply. Apparently they aren't sending email notifications anymore! So to keep up with your groups, you have to visit each one and hunt for new messages and threads, Lord only knows how you can find out if someone commented on one of your reviews. Way to kill the site, Goodreads!
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I get it--big SUVs exist for a reason! That's why I specified those people who give as their reason for owning one a desire to protect themselves in accidents.

Hah, I always found that the folks with “baby on board” signs were the worst drivers, so I thought they were trying to shift responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Rather like the drivers of very large SUVs who cite their reason for buying one as being safer in an accident. (I would mutter under my breath, “Pay attention to your driving and you won’t have an accident,” and would contemplate the sort of people who would protect themselves by driving a vehicle more likely to harm others—but then I’ve always been an old crank even when young!)

LOLOLOL! I have turned off autocorrect and Spell Check but somehow my iPad keeps finding ways to subvert me. I doubtless came near the g instead of the b when typing “bell” and the machine autofilled a word beginning with “gell.” Makes me furious how coders always imagine they know more than I do. I begin a bunch of sentences with “As” and the machine is always changing it to “Ashland.”

This book also makes reference to Hamlet, Revenge! one of Innes’s early mysteries. I think it’s also set at Scamnum Court. The name rang a gellband at first I thought that was a Barsetshire fake place-name so I googled it and that earlier book popped up.

I rather liked the unrealistic aspects of the storyline cited here. I thought the pidgin English was well done, quite creative in its wordplay; I didn’t blink at Appleby’s wading in alone to prove something to himself—especially after the humiliation of being on the scene during a theft—and Judith may have been brought along because she was in a position to identify some of the malefactors. Plus, I think Cadover was sympathetic to her fear about Sir John being in danger.

This seems to me like the tail end of a clubbier era of detection, at least as portrayed in fiction; there is a fantasy aspect to many GA mysteries that I enjoy. The P.D. James-style realism that came in during the 1960s leaves me cold—I don’t enjoy gritty.

I love the brio of Innes’s language and the vivid eccentricity of his minor characters. One thing that bothered me a little was the divergence in tone between the sections of the story that focused on Sir John (lighthearted, amusing) and the sections that focused on Judith (suspenseful, almost melodramatic). I sensed a latent sexism behind that divergence—the female character seen by the author as a vulnerable potential victim, the male character as a confident doer.

I can see how one might want to write something purely escapist, but it was awfully jarring to me—and must have been even more so to readers in 1919.

I enjoyed it and found most of the characters lively and entertaining, though a few made no sense in terms of motivation. It was weird to me that a novel published in 1919 would make no mention of the Great War, and would have so many young, healthy male characters who apparently never served in the conflict. The dialogue style was weird to me, with all the dashes and "um"s.

Your mum was right!

Me too, Sandy! More on that in the spoiler thread.

Finally finished last night (combination of flu and too much work has slowed my reading to a crawl), and I have to say I enjoyed it more than most in this thread.

As far as the mystery went there was a little lack of focus and the resolution left questions in my mind, but as a skeptical documentary of 1971 culture it was peerless. It took me back to that era in the most vivid way—the hippies with the half-baked political ideas, the awkward embrace of the sexual revolution while sexist ideas still lingered, the older people politely supporting rituals like the Church Fete that had lost all meaning, et al. So many elderly authors hark back to their glory days when faced with rapidly changing mores (thinking of Mary Stewart, perpetually writing from an early ‘60s worldview) or get grumpy about the changes in mores (Margery Allingham); Crispin gave me the sense that his savagely sarcastic mind was sharp to the end. The passages about modern authors were hilarious.

And I loved the warts-and-all characters, especially the Rector and the Major (who probably should have switched professions early in life). The police characters were a little less entertaining, though I sympathized with Widger’s agonies of frustration over Ling’s elaborate pipe rituals.

I’m not very far in but I’m enjoying all the characters and the specificity of local eccentricities.

“Crispin” in his real life actually composed music for films, so the grumpiness was probably an expression of his personal feelings.

This is next up on my list of books to read.

Ellen wrote: "Started this yesterday and I too find myself a bit ill at ease seeing everything from Routh's point of view."

Fortunately, that doesn’t last the entire book!