Retro Reads discussion

I enjoyed Death in Cyprus very much, so I am looking forward to this one.

Who has read it before? How many times? What format are you using this time.

This is my first time reading & my very evocative cover looks like this one.

Please remember no spoilers in this thread - or use spoiler tags! Wedon't want to spoil a first time read for anyone!

Sorry, I’m in the middle of a couple other mysteries, and have other library books to finish before they’re due, I’ll have to skip this read. Enjoy!

Susan in NC wrote: "Sorry, I’m in the middle of a couple other mysteries, and have other library books to finish before they’re due, I’ll have to skip this read. Enjoy!"

No worries!

I was positive that I had read this in the way back times (c 1985-ish), but it seems that recollection is not to be trusted. So I am treating this as a 'reading for the first time'.
I've borrowed a mid-1980s edition that has, alas, no dust jacket--but I believe it is this edition:

While I am expecting a touch of Cold War spy drama, I will be happy with whatever I get.

I'd never heard of this series before reading Death in Cyprus with this group and I went on to Death in Kashmir and enjoyed it just as much, so I'm really looking forward to this one! I've been introduced to so many great and "new to me" authors through this group!

Kathryn wrote: "I'd never heard of this series before reading Death in Cyprus with this group and I went on to Death in Kashmir and enjoyed it just as much, so I'm really looking forward..."

Im still looking for Death in Kashmir. Kaye's chunksters turn up in op shops all the time, but the Death In... books don't.

I have already started & I've enkoyed the scene setting.

Has almost an Agatha Christie feel at the start.

My copy (1955, US St Martin's Press) has a forward from the author. "A few weeks before we left, The Wall went up. And with its rise many fond hopes for the future of humanity came tumbling down. I watched it being built; which is possibly why, when I look back, I think I prefer the battered but more hopeful Berlin of 1933."

I think I'll intersperse this with Middlemarch (which, by the way, I'm enjoying! But I can see why listening to it instead of reading it would be a huge chore. By the time, the narrator got to the end of most of the sentences, I would have forgotten what the beginning was. I still find it so odd that Victorian authors seem older and prosier than Austen...).

I vaguely remember this one, so it should be fun!

Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "
This is my first time reading & my very evocative cover looks like this one..."

Carol, I too can't wait to start this one! I will when I get home from work today.

Hana wrote: "My copy (1955, US St Martin's Press) has a forward from the author. "A few weeks before we left, The Wall went up. And with its rise many fond hopes for the future of humanity came tumbling down. I..."

My edition also contained the Prologue, which I found very interesting as a background to the post-war setting.

The Author's Note reminds me that I should have actually remembered when the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, but I don't, not at all. It always seemed to me that it had been there forever (although I knew it hadn't, because I do love history), and when it fell in 1989, I was shocked. It seemed absolutely permanent to me.

Was anyone else surprised when it fell?

I remember the Berlin airlift (I must have been about 9 at the time). One of my great uncles was involved in administering the Marshall Plan and was stationed in the American Occupation Zone. I inherited the Rosenthal tea set that Steve and Milly bought in Berlin--it's marked Germany US Zone. I will have to get into the mood of this book by making tea in my Occupation Tea Set!

Hana wrote: "I remember the Berlin airlift (I must have been about 9 at the time). One of my great uncles was involved in administering the Marshall Plan and was stationed in the American Occupation Zone. I inh..."

*Side Note* my mother used to work for the guy who imported Rosenthal into NZ. My house is full of it!

I'm just about to start Chapter 9, but back in Chapter 7 (view spoiler)[ some awkward writing. & Characters behaving like they were in Britain & things should be at British standards. While serving, were they technically on British soil? (hide spoiler)]

Uh oh! You are waaay ahead of me, Carol. I'd better gulp down that tea and get cracking!

*side note* That's fun to know about your mother! Do you have any of the pattern called Florida? That's my tea set.

Hana wrote: "Uh oh! You are waaay ahead of me, Carol. I'd better gulp down that tea and get cracking!

*side note* That's fun to know about your mother! Do you have any of the pattern called Florida? That's my..."

I don't even recognise that name. I have "Romanze & Joy & bits & pieces of lots of other lines.

I looked up Florida - before Mum's time I would think, although I recognise the pierced cake plates. Mum worked for Bill for approximately twenty years until 1985.

My set has to have been made between 1946 to 1949 by the marker, so probably before your Mum's time at the firm. I have yet to find anything online that looks quite like mine.

Yes, I can remember there being older stock when Mum started, but I would be surprised if anything went back to the 40s.

Chapter 8: ... "Andy Page said, 'Crippen!' The expression might have been inappropriate, but the tribute was none the less sincere." They're touring the Soviet memorial, and I can't figure out why he would say "Crippen!", as the only Crippen I can think of was the famous murderer. If Andy were American, I'd think he was slangily saying "Cripes" and it was a typo, but that would sound pretty weird from a British officer. Anybody have any insight on it?

P.S. I am envious of the tea set, Hana!

I'm somewhere around Chapter 7. Our Miranda is having a hard time accepting that one of their group is a killer.
I'm really enjoying this one. Nice set-up early on with the Brigadier's dinner-time tale of missing diamonds.
I think I finally have all the British characters straightened out.

The hook between Miranda as a child and the Brigadier's story is a nice touch!

I’ve only just started but had to mention this phrase I’ve come across already. In the last several retro British novels I’ve read, at some point, in all of them, one or more characters “crumbled her bread”. It seems almost to be a standard mealtime ritual and maybe doesn’t mean what it sounds like, but all I can picture is that they are picking it to pieces and making a mess on the tablecloth!

Well, that after church get together at Col Lawrence's house sure was interesting. I'm loving the bad vibes that surround Norah Leslie and Stella Melville.

Kathryn wrote: "I’ve only just started but had to mention this phrase I’ve come across already. In the last several retro British novels I’ve read, at some point, in all of them, one or more characters “crumbled h..."

I'm hoping that they're crumbling it on the bread plate, because otherwise I'd have to do some hand slapping! But then, I've never had servants to pick up after us... (chuckle)

Kathryn wrote: "I’ve only just started but had to mention this phrase I’ve come across already. In the last several retro British novels I’ve read, at some point, in all of them, one or more characters “crumbled h..."

I'm thinking it is an archaic way of saying they pushed their food round their plate having no appetite to eat it.

Karlyne wrote: "Chapter 8: ... "Andy Page said, 'Crippen!' The expression might have been inappropriate, but the tribute was none the less sincere." They're touring the Soviet memorial, and I can't figure out why ..."

When I read this part I just assumed 'Crippen' was being used as an euphemism for a stronger, perhaps swear, word. Maybe not had any intended reference to Crippen himself?

I looked up Crippen and got slang for robbing, stealing. Interesting about Dr. Crippen though, I had never heard of him.
I am really enjoying the book, my first by M. M. Kaye.

Lesley wrote: "When I read this part I just assumed 'Crippen' was being used as an euphemism for a stronger, perhaps swear, word. Maybe not had any intended reference to Crippen himself?"

I would assume that Crippen was a variation (in honour of Dr Crippen) of Cripes! which, like Crikey!, was an alternative to taking the Lord's name in vain.

Yes, Rosina, that was my thought process too.