Review: One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus

I should actually have reviewed One of Us is Lying ages ago, ideally some point after I read it way back in August. I wasn't going to bother because I had ridiculously conflicting opinions about this book, but then I've seen just one two many glowing review to not stick my oar in.

Plot summary: On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention.

Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule. Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess. Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing. Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher. And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High’s notorious gossip app.

Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention Simon's dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn’t an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he’d planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who’s still on the loose?

Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.

I suppose the most important thing is that I enjoyed reading this book. It's written reasonably well, the dialogue isn't stilted and weird, and the narrative isn't clunky. It flows great and I kept turning the pages. My problem was that I didn't think certain... issues are dealt with in a respectful fashion.

The narrative follows four characters, each with their own chapters told in the first person. Perhaps surpringly for a YA contemporary novel, I actually quite liked them. Each character fits neatly into one of the teenage stereotypes - the vapid popular girl, the sports star, the tortured soul and the nerd. I think this is done intentionally so it's not as cloying as it sounds.

They're actually pretty great. Each character has a distinctive voice to separate them from the others and their personalities have a surprising depth. My favourite was Addy, the popular clique girl who is slowly starting to break free of her pre-determined role and consider whether this is really who she wants to be after all. 

Each of these characters has a secret, hence their potential motive for murdering the person about to reveal it. Some of these 'secrets' are infinitely more interesting than others - Bronwyn's, for example, is most definitely not a big deal and Nate's is practically plastered on his forehead. That said, I really liked Cooper's grand reveal, which I didn't see coming at all. It's a mix, in short. 

So who killed Simon? ARGH, I really need to talk about this but it's obviously ridiculously spoilery. I'm just going to have to say that I was really disappointed with the ending. I guessed the ending almost immediately but decided I was wrong because it was too obviously and there must be a twist. There wasn't.

But that's fine, I can deal with a predictable ending because I really enjoyed the characters. I have massive issues with another area of the book though, but it's an issue that would be spoilery if I even told you what the issue was.

Essentially, a certain character's actions are promoted and almost encouraged in a very damaging way. There's no discussion as to the reason behind their actions and it results in only benefits to that person, which is horrific. Nobody gets any comeuppance for their actions, neither for the issue that I'm dancing around or for the 'secrets' that made the characters suspects in the first place.

So yes, while I enjoyed the act of reading One of Us is Lying due to the great character development, the ending was predictable and certain serious issues are dealt with in a very cavalier light.  

If you've read this, please talk to me about it. Am I the only one who had similar issues? 

Review: Curtain: Poirot's Last Case by Agatha Christie

It's rare that I bother to post a review of an Agatha Christie book. They're sort of like the Discworld books in that I like them all and they all have the same quirks. Plus, if I'm honest, they all tend to blend together. Curtain though... Curtain needs talking about because I just can't get it out of my head.

Plot summary: The crime-fighting careers of Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings have come full circle - they are back once again in the rambling county house in which they solved their first murder together.

Both Poirot and Great Styles have seen better days - but despite being crippled with arthritis, there is nothing wrong with the great detective's 'little grey cells.' However, when Poirot brands one of the seemingly harmless guests a five-times murderer, some people have their doubts. But Poirot alone knows he must prevent a sixth murder before the curtain falls...

On the face of it, this is a fairly straighforward Agatha Christie novel. There's a big country house, a murder and lots of guests of varying genders, ages, professions and potential motives. The 'twist' with this one is that Poirot's knocking on a bit in years. He's confined to a wheelchair because of his arthritis so he has to use Captain Hastings as his eyes and ears... much to his evident (and fully justified) frustration. More on Captain Hopeless later.

Turning to the actual plot, this is possibly the cleverest Agatha Christie novel I have read, with the exception of perhaps And Then There Were None. It's certainly the cleverest in the Poirot series. I think what made it stand out for me was how sinister it is. It's very, very dark, much more so than any of the others. It's possibly why it's stuck in my head more than a  week later. I keep thinking about it and shuddering a little. 

The ending is... unexpected. I ran round asking everybody I knew, 'Does Poirot die?'  before I even dared to pick it up. The answer is almost irrelevant -  it's so much more than that. I also liked that this book, the last of the series, takes place at the same manor house that features in the first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. It's a perfect end to the 84 novels, stories and plays featuring the little Belgian detective. 

I'm not sure this book would have the same impact if you didn't have a few of the previous novels under your belt so that you really understand Poirot's character. It is quite depressing that that he's is old and poorly but I felt better when I realised his mental faculties were completely unimpaired, and that he retained his inherent cheerfulness (and lack of faith in Captain Hastings).

Speaking of. I've ranted about Captain Hastings on several occasions before, but he really takes the cake with this one. Look. You have been a sidekick to this detective for three decades, during which time Poirot has never once, NOT ONCE, been wrong. This means that you could probably stop from questioning his sanity, experience and sense every single time he implies he might have reached a conclusion. His age is immaterial. SHUT UP.

It's just that he seems even sulkier in Curtain. His best friend is stuck in a wheelchair, has suffered multiple heart attacks and can't run around solving the murder he desperately wants to... and you're going to sit there and give him the cold shoulder because he won't tell you who he suspects in case they murder you next. How unreasonable. I haaaate you.

Curain is genuinely amazing. I'm not sure I'll read it again in a hurry, partly because I don't think it would have the same impact if you already knew what was coming, but also because I'm not quite ready to be this traumatised again in the near future.
 
Read my review of Death on the Nile, my favourite Hercule Poirot novel.  

Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

I don't read contemporary YA. To put this in context, in the last nine years, I have read 963 books for pleasure. Of these, nine were contemporary YA and of those, I actually finished five of them. I even finished The Fault in Our Stars and An Abundance of Katherines, so I'm hardly picky! It's just not my thing. I didn't like teenagers when I was one, so they're hardly likely to have grown on me now that I'm a decade more irritable. The point is, a book of this genre has to be pretty special to make me want to read it, finish it and then actually want to talk about it in a review. I give you - We Were Liars.

A beautiful and distinguished family.

A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

  

Bex made me read this. Well, no, she didn't. But she wrote a post about it when I was bored, and lonely, and near a bookshop, so really she might as well have held a gun to my head, right? 

I actually really liked this book when I started it, even though there's not much (at first) to set it aside from lots of other YA novels out there. Cadence Sinclair and her family visit their private island every Summer. We jump into the story at about Summer Fourteen and everything is pretty much normal. You meet the characters, get a little background and slope around the beach with them for a while. It's still an interesting story and I got quite into it. More to the point, this book has a teenage relationship and I did not hate it.

But then we jump into Summer Fifteen and it all starts to go a bit wrong. With the plot, I mean. The book is still great. Cadence has had an accident... only she doesn't quite remember what that was. She knows that she has horrendous migraines and is now living the life of an invalid, but everything else about that summer is just gone from her memory.

The rest of the book features Cady during Summer Seventeen as she tries to unravel the mystery of what exactly happened to her and I promise you that it's not what you think. I'm struggling here because a lot of what I want to talk about is very spoilery. There's a twist and I have very mixed feelings about it, but this is definitely a book where the less you know going in, the better the book will be.

Let's see if I can dance on the line of vague yet explanatory. When the twist first begins to unravel, it's great. I texted Bex in capital letters just because I had to talk to someone about what had just been revealed. I loved where it was going as I completely hadn't seen it coming and it was perfect. But then I think it almost went a little too far? It seemed to twist one time too many and then it just seemed a little silly. To give credit to Ms Lockhart, it took me completely by surprise (*cough* although that might be because it makes absolutely zero sense *coughs*) and it would be interesting to reread the book knowing what I do now.

It wasn't enough to ruin the book for me, but the point of this book is the GASP!ending. I know it sounds like I didn't like We Were Liars, when I actually really did, but you're kept in suspense for an entire book and then it doesn't quite pay off. I got on board with a slightly preachy protagonist because she accepts her own flaws. The secondary characters aren't very fleshed out, but she only sees them once a year - maybe they're written that way on purpose. It tries too hard to be arty, but hey, that's fine. Arty is nice. SEE!? I GOT ON BOARD WITH THIS BOOK. And then I was ever-so-slightly let down.

Bex is going to murder me.

Read her review at An Armchair by the Sea here.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

I added this to my wishlist right after finishing The Haunting of Hill House earlier this year. I'd link you to a review, but like almost every other book I've read this year, I didn't write one. I chose to learn Russian instead. Yes, I am also a little confused as to why. Anyway, I knew I wanted to read every book she had ever written, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle is the author's most famous work. I now completely understand why and I'm in total agreement. It's amazing and I want to lick it.

Plot summary: Living in the Blackwood family home with only her sister Constance and her Uncle Julian for company, Merricat just wants to preserve their delicate way of life. But ever since Constance was acquitted of murdering the rest of the family, the world isn't leaving the Blackwoods alone. And when Cousin Charles arrives, armed with overtures of friendship and a desperate need to get into the safe, Merricat must do everything in her power to protect the remaining family. 

I was absolutely hooked by the end of the first page. It's narrated by Merricat, or Mary Katherine Blackwood, in a very formal yet oddly chatty tone. She lives with her sister, who was formerly on trial for poisoning the rest of their family, and their Uncle Julian, who somehow managed to survive the whole thing. It's one of those books where the truth is finally unearthed with little hints here and there, dotted in and amongst the narrative of their daily lives.

The trial and the murder aren't the focus of We Have Always Lived in the Castle though, not really. It's more of a background feature to explain why the two women live alone and why the village dislikes their presence to such a vehement extent. The subtlety of it makes it all the more fascinating. The main plot revolves around their Cousin Charles, who suddenly rolls up one day and begins what Merricat refers to as The Change.

As with most of Shirley Jackson's books (from the two I've read and what I've heard of the others), there's a very Gothic, mysterious atmosphere that seems to creep from the very pages. Merricat likes to hide little treasures in the ground of their property, as apparently this will create some kind of ward to protect her and Constance from the outside world. She never quite comes out and says that she believes she has magical powers, but the implication is very much there. 

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.

There's also a mental illness theme that runs through this book. It seems to be a trademark of Shirley Jackson's to keep the reader on their toes - half the time you're not sure whether the characters have psychological issues or there really is something worrying going on. Aside from Uncle Julian's obvious difficulties, both Constance and Merricat have been affected by the trial and the death of their family, and it shows in their actions. Both are agoraphobic, although to different extents, and both are stuck in the mindset they carried during That Time six years previously. It's very cleverly written. 

I don't feel like this review is really doing any justice at all to the book. It's hard to capture the subtlety and the atmosphere of this book, that is just written so beautifully. Even the ending is perfect, in a lot of different ways. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I turned the last page and I would be very surprised if this book didn't make my Top Ten Books of 2015 list. 

Read Laura's review of The Haunting of Hill House at Devouring Texts.

Review: Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

I think that Death on the Nile is my second favourite Agatha Christie novel, next to And Then There Were None which I've also read recently. This book features Hercule Poirot, however; the charming little Belgian detective with his famous moustache. I do like him best of all the 'regular' investigators, so I am rather partial to this particular series.

Plot summary: The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything – until she lost her life.
Hercule Poirot recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: ‘I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.’ Yet in this exotic setting nothing is ever quite what it seems…

After my And Then There Were None review, I talked to quite a few of my readers who said that they'd read an Agatha Christie novel once and not really liked it. Normally I'd shrug my shoulders and say 'fair enough,' but you just can't do that with Agatha Christie. Her books are so different and there are so many of them, that disliking one is no guarantee that you'll hate them all, and vice versa. Take Passenger to Frankfurt - I could barely bring myself to finish it, but I still like an awful lot of her other books.

So. Death on the Nile is unsurprisingly set in Egypt, for the most part on board a cruise ship heading down the Nile. Linnet Ridgeway, a rich young newlywed is shot in her bed one night, and you don't need Poirot to work out that it was somebody on board the ship. The question is, quite obviously, whodunnit?

There's a whole host of characters to choose from, each with their own potential motive for killing Linnet. There are secrets, confessions, confusions, red herrings and pretty much everything you could ever want from a vintage murder mystery.
In addition, there's a wonderful atmosphere to this book. There's a tension as everybody has a different idea about who the murderer is, but they're all trapped on a ship among the mysterious ancient artifacts. 

I also like that Poirot's companion on this voyage is Colonel Race instead of Captain Hastings. The latter is a little annoying, constantly mumbling to himself that Poirot has finally lost his mind and doesn't know what he's talking about despite many books where he has not and does, respectively. Colonel Race is much more respectful and competant in his own right, although he refers to Poirot's judgement when necessary.

Reading Death on the Nile made for an interesting experiment actually. When I read And Then There Were None, I'd forgotten who the culprit was and so it was like reading it again for the first time, with all the surprises and twists read for me. I began this book the same way, but after a chapter or two it all came rushing back and I remembered everything. Oddly enough, it gave me a different type of satisfaction - I got to sit there all smug and victorious while the characters made lots of silly accusations I knew were wrong. Clearly it works just fine to read these books when you know the ending!

Speaking of which, the ending itself is suitably climactic. It makes sense but I'd never have figured it out on my own. That's why we have Poirot, I suppose! I love when a denouement of a mystery novel is actually clever - you've been on a journey along with the innocent characters and it's thrilling to all learn the true answer together.

In short, Death on the Nile is second only to And Then There Were None, and that is high praise indeed. Regardless of whether you've read Agatha Christie before and didn't like it much, try again - and this book is a great place to start.

Read my reviews of Sparkling Cyanide or The Body in the Library.

Review: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

And Then There Were None is my ultimate favourite Agatha Christie book and has been for years. I first read my Grandma's copy when I was very young (although it was published under a very different and non-politically correct title) and I've been addicted to it ever since. I don't read it that often because I like to give myself time to forget 'who dunnit,' but when I do it's instantly comforting.

Plot summary: Ten strangers, apparently with little in common, are lured to an island mansion off the coast of Devon by the mysterious U.N.Owen. Over dinner, a record begins to play, and the voice of an unseen host accuses each person of hiding a guilty secret. That evening, former reckless driver Tony Marston is found murdered by a deadly dose of cyanide.
The tension escalates as the survivors realise the killer is not only among them but is preparing to strike again… and again. 

There's not a lot else I can add to that synopsis without giving things away. Ten people arrive on an island, all lured there under different false pretenses, and one gentlemen is murdered that very evening. On the desk are ten little soldier figurines, but eventually the remaining guests notice that only nine soldiers remain... Dum dum dum.

It just works. I've read a lot of Agatha Christie novels and while most of them are quite clever, this one really takes the cake.  There's no Hercule Poirot or Jane Marple in And Then There Were None - only the guests and the murderer. There's a wonderful atmosphere of suspicion and tension as the arrow of blame swings from one guest to another as they don't have any more idea than the reader... and it shows.

I had absolutely no idea who the culprit could be although their motivation becomes clear fairly early on. It would be interesting to have a dicussion about the morality of each murder as it plays a fairly heavy role in the plot. Societal views have altered since 1939 and I'm not sure I agree with some of the conclusions reached in the book. I'm aware how vague that is, but it will make sense if you've read it. It didn't affect my enjoyment of the book in the slightest little bit, but it would make for an interesting book club conversation.

My usual (only) complaint about Agatha Christie books is that I can't keep all the characters straight. There's always a Lady Woofington, a Colonel Bobcat, a Mrs Froggle, and so on and eventually their personalities all mesh into one and you can't remember who's married to who and which neice is due to inherit the vast fortune (or whatever). For some reason though, I really didn't have a problem with And Then There Were None. The characters are the fairly generic vintage mystery staples but somehow they all seem more real here, perhaps because less effort has gone into padding out the star detective.

There's not a huge amount that I can say about this book that I haven't said before about other Agatha Christie mystery novels, but if you only ever pick up one of them, make sure it's this one. It's my absolute favourite and I can almost guarantee you won't see the ending coming.

Read Charlotte's review of And Then There Were None at Lit Addicted Brit.

Review: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Sometimes you buy a book based on an interesting synopsis or even a beautiful cover; a recommendation from a friend maybe. Then again, every so often a book crops up that you know absolutely nothing about but you read it anyway just because it's within easy reach of your oh-so-lazy self. The Secret History was just such a book. Charlotte recommended it to me, but only in passing and in the vaguest of ways. The blurb tells you absolutely nothing and the cover is hardly descriptive. And yet this modern classic ended up being one of the best written and enigmatic books I've read this year.

Plot summary: Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever.

Hardly specific. Yet I do think that's an asset for The Secret History. With some books you need to begin with an understanding of the general direction of the story, but here I loved just settling back for the journey. I didn't know what The Point was, the tone or even what genre it was going to end up (and that's still under dispute), but that meant every development and twist was a complete and absolute surprise.

The prologue threw me a little in that respect. I suppose I was expecting something very academic and perhaps relationship-related, and the very dramatic and adventure-type-novel tone of the prologue threw me a little. In all honesty I nearly didn't continue with the book at all. However, I've stated time and time again that the first thing I'll do as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is to completely outlaw both epilogues and prologues alike, and I think that my point in that respect is proved with The Secret History.

The book itself is certainly not even remotely adventure-ish. It has quite a slow plot with not a great deal of action, but you feel the twists in the plot like a punch to the stomach. The story is built up ever-so-slowly with a lot of discussion about classic philosophers and morality that occasionally went over my head. It's not to a book to pick up when you're sleepy as it would be almost impossible to follow.

I listened, a bit affronted by his tone. To do what he asked was tantamount to my transferring entirely out of Hampden College into his own little academy of ancient Greek, student body five, six including me. 'All my classes with you?' I said.
'Not quite all of them,' he said seriously, and then laughed when he saw the look on my face. 'I believe that having a great diversity of teachers is harmful and confusing for a young mind, in the same way I believe that it is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially,' he said. 'I know the modern world tends not to agree with me, but after all, Plato had only one teacher, and Alexander.' 

Don't let that put you off though. The tension and the atmosphere is almost tangible, and without doubt the best thing about this novel. I put down the book and still felt the pressure to keep hold of all the dark secrets I'd been told in confidence through reading. It's a masterpiece of storytelling, it really is.   

The various relationships, secrets, plots and betrayals loosely demonstrate the Greek tragedies which are, after all, the theme of the book. It's not something I picked up upon until I sat down afterwards to consider exactly why The Secret History works so well, but I eventually clicked onto the way it shadows the very concept under discussion. It's actually kind of perfect.

The characters aren't exactly likeable; in fact, they're the very opposite. Then again, the Greek heroes were hardly the epitome of charm and goodness. Except when they transformed into swans and raped women, obviously. It adds to the story to a certain extent though. It adds a certain distance between the characters and the reader, much as though you were studying their actions in an academic context. 

All in all, I love the formal but clever tone and the aura of darkness that surrounds the story. There are lots of twists and secret revelations, but it's the stunning prose that really makes The Secret History what it is. It does require you to take your time while reading it, but I promise you that it's worth every second.

Read a much more eloquent review at The Lit Addicted Brit.

Review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

In big letters, at the top of the page in my review notebook, it says 'THIS IS GOING TO BE A BITCH TO REVIEW.' And it is. Surprise, surprise. I loved Gone Girl, but it has a big twist quite early on in the book that makes it absolutely impossible to discuss without giving away some pretty big-ass spoilers. I'm going to try and keep this spoiler-free, but I'm not sure how that's going to work out, so you have been warned!

Plot summary: 'What are you thinking, Amy?' The question I've asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: 'What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?' Just how well can you ever know the person you love? 

This is the question that Nick Dunne must ask himself on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police immediately suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they aren't his. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife? And what was in that half-wrapped box left so casually on their marital bed? In this novel, marriage truly is the art of war...

I adored this book with every fiber of my being - it's a dark, clever and unique twist of a missing wife tale. Apparently it looks like a YA book (I say 'apparently,' because clearly it doesn't in the slightest) but it most definitely is not. It's far too dark and the plot is vaguely psychotic.   

The narrative alternates between modern-day Nick and his search for his missing wife, and Amy's old diary entries that creeping forward in time ever so slowly. The tension builds and builds, to the point where I was desperate to know what had happened to Amy, while at the same time I almost didn't want to find out... I was too scared of what was going to happen! There are twists piled upon twists in Gone Girl, but every single revelation left me reeling. 

I get the feeling that I liked Amy more than I was supposed to. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to take Nick OR Amy home for lunch, but my sympathies are leaning a little more in Amy's direction. Surely that's fundamental evidence of excellent writing that you pretty much always agree with whoever is 'speaking' at the time.

It helps that in my head I was picturing her as Amy Adams, but hey ho. As an off-side, wouldn't she make a brilliant choice for the film version? Whoever you like more, however, there's no getting away from how real they both are. I feel like I know both of them impossibly well - it's a lesson in characterisation for anybody wanting to write a novel. 

The main concept of this book was that how you appear to yourself may not always be how you appear to others. Or that's what I took from it anyway. It offers the perspectives of both Nick and Amy, of both how they see themselves and how they see their partner... and there are clearly some differences of opinion. It works fantastically well and I've never seen anything pulled off in quite the same way. 

I've tried to think of something to balance out this slightly gushing review, but I genuinely can't think of anything. I wanted to be reading it all the time, and when I couldn't read it I was plotting desperately how I could get back to it. To sum-up, I can't think of anybody who wouldn't like this book. In theory, I mean. It doesn't really fit into any of the traditional genres and that means that almost anybody can find something to love about Gone Girl.

Find Gillian Flynn at her website or on Facebook. 

Review: Encounters of Sherlock Holmes by George Mann and Others

As you can probably gather, Encounters of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories by modern authors, featuring the same characters we all know and love. As is always the case, some stories are better than others but there are a few that could easily pass for a Conan Doyle original.

The spirit of Sherlock Holmes lives on in this collection of fourteen brand-new adventures. Marvel as the master of deduction aids a dying Sir Richard Francis Burton; matches wits with a gentleman thief, A.J. Raffles; crosses paths with H.G. Wells in the most curious circumstances; unravels a macabre mystery on the Necropolis Express; unpicks a murder in a locked railway carriage; explains the origins of his famous Persian slipper and more!

To start simply, my favourite stories in this collection were The Adventure of the Locked Carriage by Stuart Douglas and The Property of a Thief by Mark Wright. The former in particular captured the tone and style of Arthur Conan Doyle to the extent that it was barely distinguishable.

As with many collections of this nature however, the standard is hardly constant. The writing style for the majority is actually at a very good level; there are a few that are slightly clunky, but I was impressed with the quality overall. It was just the subject matter and dialogue that let them down.

I think the main problem with Encounters of Sherlock Holmes is that a lot of the stories try too hard. I understood who this collection was supposed to feature without the authors needing to mention Irene Adler, cocaine, Deerstalker hats (which he never wore in the books anyway) or using the word 'elementary' every other page. A lot of the stories do fall prey to this, unfortunately.  

The other problem is an irritating use of what can only be referred to as 'gimmicks.' Roughly 80% of these stories try to shock you into liking them, either by using a very modern subject matter that would have been appalling in the 19th Century, featuring the paranormal or featuring at least one character from another author's work. All but... *counts* two fall prey to this. I have to say, it got a little irritating. The original Sherlock Holmes stories didn't need to use gay pornography or aliens to be interesting, so why should they now? The first sentence of one story is:

There commenced in the spring of 1915 one of the most fascinating cases that my friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, has had the fortune to investigate since the arrival on our planet of the Martians ten years ago... 

No. Thank you, but no. There was another that I particularly didn't like that featured characters from a few different classic Horror novels, but saying more may spoil it. The authors should have been comfortable enough with their own writing to create a simple mystery without embellishing it with tricks or extra characters.

On the whole, a very mixed bag - a few of these stories were amazing, most were acceptable and one I couldn't finish. Immediately after finishing I went to pick up my original Sherlock Holmes books and then watched the Robert Downey Jr. films back to back, so it at least has enough of the correct tone to put me in a Sherlock frame of mind!

Thank you to Titan Books for sending me a copy of this book.

Review: Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

So it's a fairly well established fact that I like Pride and Prejudice - I have 54 copies of the book and I can give you a play-by-play of the Jennifer Ehle series without ever needing to consult an episode guide. I was the only person in my Law class to be amused when a court case involved a Charlotte Lucas. Therefore it wasn't precisely unfair of my boyfriend to remark "Well of course you didn't like it, stupid." But... I don't know. I think I did expect to like it, at least somewhat. Phyllis Dorothy James is an actual fan of Jane Austen and an established crime author - not some hack trying to cash in on classic fans. And yet it remains that Death Comes to Pemberley just didn't bring it home somehow.

Plot summary - The year is 1803, and Darcy and Elizabeth have been married for six years. There are now two handsome and healthy sons in the nursery, Elizabeth's beloved sister Jane and her husband Bingley live nearby and the orderly world of Pemberley seems unassailable. But all this is threatened when, on the eve of the annual autumn ball, as the guests are preparing to retire for the night a chaise appears, rocking down the path from Pemberley's wild woodland. As it pulls up, Lydia Wickham - Elizabeth's younger, unreliable sister - stumbles out screaming that her husband has been murdered.

Death Comes to Pemberley starts off with a wonderful Author's Note that apologises to Jane Austen for what P.D. James has done to her characters. It's gentle humour and clearly shows her respect. She's been a Jane Austen fan all her life and it feels like this book was written to indulge a whim of the author, not for money. It is basically fanfiction, after all.

That said, it doesn't quite work. The plot itself is fine - nothing particularly new, but then that isn't really what the novel sets out to do. The twists and the grand revelation fit in with what we know of the characters and it's easy to imagine them acting the way they did. The main problem is in the way they speak and think.

They're all so flat! Elizabeth especially is notably 'flat' - her character has none of the wit or ingenuity she is so renowned for. In fact, I'd go so far as to say she was painted quite harshly. At one point she even thinks to herself how she wouldn't have married Mr. Darcy if he was poor, despite wishing only to marry for love in Pride and Prejudice. The narrative mentions how strange Georginana found it at first when Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy teased each other... but they don't. Ever. 

It took a while for the story to get going - it's definitely more of a legal drama than any kind of crime/thriller. I know not a whole lot happens in Pride and Prejudice either, but Death Comes to Pemberley goes off on tangents about the relatives of the servants, for God's sake.

It's also quite obvious that P.D. James isn't accustomed to writing historical fiction. The prose itself is lovely - very authentic and Austen-y. It's just that every so often one of the characters will go into a full monologue to bludgeon you with historical explanation. As an example... the characters are proceeding to the courtroom. Mr. Darcy turns around and says, out of the blue, 'Remind me of the court process again?' and then one of the other characters will branch off into a full blown lecture for a page or so. He's a magistrate! I could deal with this once or twice, but not the frequency with which it happens. It stopped the flow entirely.

With reference to that... It's not P.D. James fault (or I assume not, considering she's a London magistrate and an Honorary Bencher at Inner Temple), but how backwards was the court system back then!? I wanted to scribble over and correct the entire thing! So ridiculously warped and biased.

It isn't much of a crime story, so I can't help but feel that it was written mainly to tie up a few loose ends left over from Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Darcy and Georgiana still have issues over her intended elopement, for example, and he apologises to Elizabeth for his earlier poor treatment of her. Their relationship just didn't seem to gel throughout this book though, so I remained unmoved. It doesn't help that the one thing I wanted to be rectified, wasn't. Lydia. Good Lord that girl needs her comeuppance.

To conclude, Death Comes to Pemberley is... fine. It wouldn't have stood on its own feet without using this particular set of characters, but even they are flat and lifeless for the most part. It's easily readable but nothing special.

Read my reviews of Emma and Northanger Abbey.

Review: Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas

Scrawled on the page of my review notebook dedicated to Our Tragic Universe in huge red letters are the words 'This will be a BITCH to review!!!' And you know what? It really, really is. I really did love it though. I've never read a Scarlett Thomas book before, despite Bex's continuous prodding, but I saw this in the charity shop all pretty and shiny (literally, it looks like it's made out of gold tin foil) and I just had to give it a go. It's one of those books where you know you absolutely adored it but just can't work out why. Ah well, want to bare with me while I have a go? :)

Plot summary - If Kelsey Newman's theory about the end of time is true, we are all going to live forever. For Meg - locked in a hopeless relationship and with a deadline long-gone for a book that she can't write - this thought fills her with dread.

Meg is lost in a labyrinth of her own devising. But could there be an important connection between a wild beast living on Dartmoor, a ship in a bottle, the science of time, a knitting pattern for the shape of the universe and the Cottingley Fairies? Or is her life just one long chain of coincidences?

Smart, entrancing and buzzing with big ideas, Our Tragic Universe is a book about how relationships are created and destroyed, and how a story might just save your life.

I was completely hooked on this book from the very few pages, even though I hadn't worked out where it was leading or even what it was about. I still haven't actually. I think that's part of its charm though - it's very normal on some levels. It's just Meg, going about her daily (and fairly mediocre) life while thinking in exactly the same way we all do - pointless and rambly musings heading off in tangents in all directions.

It never gets boring though, that's the thing. There's virtually no action and there are a fair few lengthy essays about philosophy, but somehow Meg's voice saves it. The prose is jumpy, rambling and... well, completely amazing. It's not always relevant to the plot (to the extent that one actually exists) but it didn't bother me - I just got lost in Meg's world and her thoughts. It's like being inside a real person's life, not a book person's life.

How do you end a story about a Beast? We'd discussed that for hours. Chekhov said if you have a gun in a story it needs to go off. If you have a Beast in a story, does it need to 'go off' too? When? How? My novel, my bloody albatross, The Death of the Author, deliberately had no such symmetry, and I was constantly in turmoil because one minute it would have too much narrative: people desperately in love, or waking up from their comas, or lying in ditches contemplating great life cchanges and so on - just like a formulaic genre novel - then I'd fiddle with it and it would die: a species extinct before it has even begun. 

 There's a lot of book talk in Our Tragic Universe, both specific and vague. The former is great - Meg mentions Anna Karenina a lot, amongst other books, and I loved relating her thoughts to my own. The latter though? Not so much. She's desperately trying to write a literary novel and run classes on genre formulation and, despite being reasonable well-read and informed on the literary world, a lot of it went way over my head. It's also occasionally quite snide about teenage books - sometimes I got the feeling that Scarlett Thomas would never deign to write anything other than literary fiction. To be fair, she's very, very good at it!

Nothing is too obscure for Meg and Scarlett Thomas to muse over - placebos, the end of the world, evolution, memories, veganism, homeopathic remedies... It's great; I've never read a book like it. Even the damn Cottingley Fairies get a mention... *sighs* God, I loathe fairies. I live within walking distance of Cottingley Woods where the whole thing took place so there's an awful lot of fairy-ness around here. Although, judging by how excited I got when it was mentioned in the book, I don't hate the very source of where my fairy dislike originated. A bundle of contradictions, that's me.

You may have gathered by now, but not a whole lot actually happens in Our Tragic Universe. There is an over-riding objective (wonderful, I'm inserting legal terminology into reviews now...) but it was over-shadowed for me by the general prose. I think I'd have prefered a few more answers by the end, but I suppose that that's kind of the point.

Well, it's looking like the copy of The End of Mr Y that has been sat on my TBR for more than a year will eventually get read, along with everything else Scarlett Thomas has ever written ever. 

Visit Scarlett Thomas' website here, or find her on Twitter. 

Review: Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie

The stand-alone Agatha Christie books (the ones that feature neither Poirot nor Miss Marple) seem to be a little hit-and-miss.I think that And Then There Were None is one of the cleverest mystery books of all time; I read it before I set up this blog, but you can see The Lit Addicted Brit's review here. It's simply wonderful. But then you have novels like Passenger to Frankfurt (review here - my own this time) where I actually regretted the loss of the few hours it took me to plough through it. So, keeping the above in mind, I was fairly apprehensive when I picked up Sparkling Cyanide. Would it be a spectacular mystery with suspense and a truly thrilling ending, or a complicated political flop?

A beautiful heiress is fatally poisoned in a West End restaurant. Six people sit down to dinner at a table laid for seven. In front of the empty place is a sprig of rosemary -- in solemn memory of Rosemary Barton who died at the same table exactly one year previously. No one present on that fateful night would ever forget the woman's face, contorted beyond recognition -- or what they remembered about her astonishing life.

 

All of society knows that Rosemary Barton committed suicide with cyanide on the evening of her birthday party, but when her husband starts receiving notes that tell him otherwise, he sets out to investigate who could have poisoned his late wife. The book starts out with a chapter devoted to each of the six suspects, as they muse on what they remember of Rosemary Barton. Naturally, as with most mystery novels, it turns out that every single one of them had a motive for murder. After this, the true investigation begins as the Police, aided by an old friend of Mr. Barton, try and discover whether Rosemary's life was in fact cut short by the hand of another.

 

I know it's kind of a strange idea to start a review by talking about the ending of the book, but ohhh, it's all kinds of awesome! The denouement is always the key to a kick-ass mystery story - if it's boring, the whole story will fall apart. The revelation in Sparkling Cyanide is definitely not boring. I honest-to-God literally sat here with my Iron Man blanket and went 'AAaaahhhhh!' and grinned like a lunatic. It's very, very nearly as clever as And Then There Were None, and that takes some doing.

 

The characterisation is a little better than it can be in certain Agatha Christie books. Sometimes they all meld into each other and you can't remember whether Mrs. Tomato was the lady with the little dog, or whether she was the one that slept with Mrs. Butter's husband. Anyway, before I get sucked into the world of kitchen related scandal, that's not the case here. All the suspects have identifiable personalities, and I was fascinated by how each person could have a different perspective on the same event. Frequently a person would know something that another person didn't think they knew, and that could affect the entire case. It was just wonderful how everything could tie in with everything else.

 

Agatha Christie books are very difficult to review, because they all follow more or less the same formula, so I only usually bother if they're particularly good or particularly bad. I read Sparkling Cyanide in pretty much one sitting and it emerged as at least one of my top three mystery novels.  

Review: Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie

I love Agatha Christie. I love her novels, I love her plays and I love her life story. I love Poirot, Marple and even Tommy and Tuppence. Passenger to Frankfurt, however? This I did not love. The last Christie book I read was The Body in the Library- you can find my review here, just to prove that I'm usually a fan!

A middle-aged diplomat is accosted in an airport lounge and his identity stolen. Sir Stafford Nye's journey home from Malaya to London takes an unexpected twist in the passnger loungs at Frankfurt -- a young woman confides in him that someone is trying to kill her. Yet their paths are to cross again and again -- and each time the mystery woman is introduced as a different person. Equally at home in any guise in any society she draws Sir Stafford into a game of political intrigue more dangerous than he could possibly imagine. In an arena where no-one can be sure of anyone, Nye must do battle with a well-armed, well-financed, well-trained -- and invisible -- enemy! 

It just doesn't read like an Agatha Christie mystery novel at all - there's no crime to solve and no suspects to investigate. It has much more of a political vibe. A moderately successful diplomat, Stafford Nye, is recruited by a mysterious committee to discover who is causing the youth of the world to revolt. He flies all over the world with his companion in order to... umm, have a lot of conversations with people.

There's not a whole lot of action - just pages and pages of dialogue. By the end there were so many new characters I was seriously considering making a list to keep them all straight in my head. The plot changes direction from page to page, so the ending really only makes any sense at all if you've been paying very close attention - which I hadn't.

The best thing about this book was Ms. Christie's introduction at the beginning. She was such a wonderfully witty woman, and her own musings are always a pleasure to read. She talks about how irritating she finds journalists who perpetually ask her from where she gets her ideas, and how she yearns to tell them that she plucks them off the shelves at Woolworths.

It pains me to write such a negative review of an Agatha Christie book - until this point I've pretty much loved them all. I'm excusing it by pointing out again that this isn't a murder mystery novel at all - more a story of political intrigue.

Review: The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie

I'm not usually the biggest fan of Miss Marple - I much prefer Poirot who actually gets off his arse and does things instead of sitting there and piping up at the end that he knew it all along. Regardless, I really enjoyed The Body in the Library. It's clever, amusing and much more interesting than some of the others.

It's seven in the morning. The Bantrys wake to find the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing evening dress and heavy make-up, which is now smeared across her cheeks. But who is she? How did she get there? And what is the connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry? The respectable Bantrys invite Miss Marple to solve the mystery! before tongues start to wag. 

To be honest, I think this may be the only Miss Marple book I've been impressed with. I love Poirot more than life itself, but Miss Marple just tends to sit there knitting while making obscure little remarks. The Body in the Library is completely different though - she takes an active role in investigations, while still comparing the victim to her sister's neighbour's maid's cat or something similar.

"Downstairs in the lounge, by the third pillar from the left, there sits an old lady with a sweet, placid spinsterish face, and a mind that has plumbed the depths of human iniquity and taken it as all in the day's work. Her name's Miss Marple. She comes from the village of St Mary Mead, she's a friend of the Bantrys - and where crime is concerned she's the goods, Conway."

I love how all the characters keep mentioning how the whole scandal 'seems like something from a mystery novel!' Ms. Christie states in the introduction how she wanted to take a mystery novel cliche (the body in the library, shockingly) and turn it on it's head. As a result, all the characters seem to be in on the joke and it's hilarious. In an earlier book, someboy states that Ariadne Oliver is the author of a book called 'The Body in the Library,' which apparently Ms. Christie ended up actually writing!

"I say, are you the detectives? I'm Peter Carmody. It was my grandfather, Mr Jefferson, who rang up the police about Ruby. Are you from Scotland Yard? You don't mind my speaking to you, do you?"
Colonel Melchett looked as though he were about to return a short answer, but Superintendent Harper intervened. He spoke benignly and heartily.
"That's all right, my son. Naturally interests you, I expect?"
"You bet it does. Do you like detective stories? I do. I read them all and I've got autographs from Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie and Dickson Carr and H.C. Bailey."

Aww. That actually made me smile. I think that's the main reason I love the book though - Agatha Christie wrote it like she's poking fun at herself and all the author mystery authors of her time. 
And naturally the plot is as ingenious as ever - twists, red herrings, accused innocents and unexpected accomplices! I've always understood why Ms Christie is known as the Queen of Crime, but this book really confirms it for me. These books are always really hard to review, so excuse the brevity - I can't talk about the plot without giving the twists away and the rest of it is very dialogue-based. Just trust me, and choose this one if you're going to read a Marple.

Review: The Woman In Black by Susan Hill

I've wanted to re-read this ever since I first heard the film that's coming out, featuring Daniel Radcliffe as Arthur Kipps. I'll post a link to the trailer at the bottom, but it looks amazing. I'm not sure Mr Radcliffe will ever be anything but Harry Potter, but I guess we'll find out in early 2012. In the meantime, Hannah from Once Upon A Time was nice enough to send me a copy of the book after we had a lengthy discussion of the suitability of Mr Radcliffe.

Proud and solitary, Eel Marsh House surveys the windswept reaches of the salt marshes beyond Nine Lives Causeway. Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor, is summonded to attend the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow, the house's sole inhabitant, unaware of the tragic secrets which lie hidden behind the shuttered windows. It is not until he glimpses a wasted young woman, dressed all in black, at the funeral, that a creeping sense of unease begins to take hold, a feeling deepened by the reluctance of the locals to talk of the woman in black - and her terrible purpose. 

I really, really enjoyed this. I've got a thing for creepy, old-fashioned ghost stories - they're just so much more intense than more modern ones. Ms Hill is particularly skilled at creating atmosphere and describing the terror and anxiety Mr Kipp is feeling. I think that's what makes The Woman in Black so great - you can really feel how frightened Arthur is, and so it forces you to feel the same way.

I suppose it's fairly conventional in a way - residents of the local village that refuse to speak of the House and a small dog that snarls and barks when there's nothing there. But somehow, it's better than that. The ghost herself isn't your usual villain either. She's not evil exactly, just slightly creepy and sinister, but that only adds to the mystery and suspense really.

That said, I only 'liked' this book until the very end. After that, I loved it. I have read it before, but not in a number of years so I'd completely forgotten the ending. Without explaining further, just know it's one of the best endings to a novel I've ever read.

Looking at the trailer, they seem to have changed quite a few bits for the film- I don't really understand the presence of the children and they seem to have added more action. But then, I suppose you can't make a film out of Daniel Radcliffe just stood there looking scared a lot. It looks good though - I can't wait!