Reading the Detectives discussion

Welcome to our Oct/Nov 25 buddy read of Gently By the Shore The second book in the Chief Superintendent Gently series was first published in 1956.

You'll find plenty of bodies stretched out on a summer beach - but they're not usually dead...

In a British seaside holiday resort at the height of the season, you would expect to find a promenade and a pier, maybe some donkeys, 'Kiss-Me-Quick' hats, candy floss and kids building sandcastles. You would not expect to find a naked corpse, punctured with stab wounds, lying on the sand.

Chief Inspector George Gently is called in to investigate the disturbing murder. The case has to be wrapped up quickly to calm the nerves of concerned holidaymakers. No one wants to think that there is a maniac on the loose in the town but with no clothes or identifying marks on the body, Gently has a tough time establishing who the victim is, let alone finding the killer. In the meantime, who knows where or when the murderer might strike again?

Please do not post spoilers in this thread. Thank you.

I have literally just started this - am on the first chapter. Good to see that Gently now has a sidekick. I do think he needed someone, or something other than those annoying peppermint creams...

lol! I may read this one, have the kindle but a few other reads on the go right now. Good to know he’s expanded beyond peppermint creams!

Thank you for opening the discussions, Susan. I thought this was slightly better than the first book overall, but didn't start very well - at first there are a lot of uncomfortable descriptions of a disabled character.

Plus Gently keeps eating peppermint creams every five minutes and I wanted to grab them off him! But then it does improve and becomes more of an atmospheric thriller, and I think he must run out of peppermint creams for at least part of the book.

It's an odd quirk to give your detective!

Susan wrote: "It's an odd quirk to give your detective!"

Well, so many quirks are taken. I've read a Maigret recently and he is constantly fiddling with his pipe. Bobby Owen rubs his nose. In the Andrew Basset series I just read he must have cheese for breakfast.

There's also Mordecai Tremaine constantly adjusting his pince nez in the Francis Duncan books.

A trivia contest: identify the detective by the trait!

And Christie was annoyed by Poirot's moustache and patent leather shoes and for just being Belgian ;)

I think writers often regret making detectives a certain age and then realising they have a successful series and a central character hurtling towards retirement.