#Mr Poirot is this a detective and I think most of her books are with him?

[imhereforscm]

Which Agatha Christie book would you recommend to an absolute beginner?

You gave me a chance to talk about books and my dear Agatha Christie and that made me very excited😁💖💖

I believe there's no "hard-to-read" book among Agatha's books. It's really up to what anyone likes and/or dislikes!

My personal opinion on her books is that I've never been disappointed. Also, it covers crime cases from a perspective of human psychology. It's not just about footprints and fingerprints and all that technical aspects and that's what makes me love those books, among other crime ones I've started and dropped many times, because I wasn't hooked.

But I'm gonna recommend three of my favourites. Again: I love all of her books, but these are my favourites so far:

*warnings: all of these books center around murder*

Lord Edgware Dies

This is the first book I read of hers.

The premise just like it's written in Goodreads:

It's true; Hercule Poirot had been present when the famous actress Jane Wilkinson bragged of her plan to ‘get rid of’ her estranged husband, Lord Edgware.

Now the man was dead. And yet the great Belgian detective couldn’t help feeling that he was being taken for a ride. After all, how could Jane have stabbed her thoroughly detestable husband to death in his library at exactly the same time she was seen dining with friends? And what could be her motive now that the aristocrat had finally agreed to grant her a divorce?

Cards on the Table

The premise by Goodreads:

A flamboyant party host is murdered in full view of a roomful of bridge players!

Mr. Shaitana was famous, as were his parties. He was also a man of whom everybody was a little afraid. So, when he boasted to Poirot that he considered murder an art form, the detective had some reservations about accepting a party invitation of cards and viewing Shaitana’s private art collection. Indeed, what began as an absorbing evening of bridge was to turn into a more dangerous game altogether…

Something else I want to add, which my version on the book had written on (idk why it's not mentioned here, when it's a crucial element and it really piqued my interest): in this case, there's no "who's most likely to commit murder." Because the special element in this case, is that all suspects have committed murder in the past. Therefore we know it could be anyone.

Elephants Can Remember

I found the psychological topic this book was dealing with to be SO intriguing. I can't tell you which theme it was specifically though, because that would be spoiling it.

Premise from Goodreads:

Hercule Poirot stood on the cliff-top. For here, many years earlier, there had been a tragic accident – the broken body of a woman was discovered on the rocks at the foot of the cliff. This was followed by the grisly discovery of two more bodies – a husband and wife – shot dead. But who had killed whom? Was it a suicide pact? A crime of passion? Or cold-blooded murder? Poirot delves back into a crime committed 15 years earlier and discovers that, when there is a distinct lack of physical evidence, it’s just as well that ‘old sins leave long shadows.'

I've read more books by Agatha, but these are my personal three favourites (I hope I'm not forgetting any, but I don't think I do). But of course, my words are subjective! These books might not be everyone's cup of tea, so if you think my recommendation were not satisfying, you can always look up more yourself💖💖 (I suggest you not going on Wikipedia, because there are HUGE spoilers there. Go on Goodreads.)

These books are from Poirot's series of stories. Agatha has also written about Miss Marple. I haven't read a lot of Miss Marple yet, but from my very little experience with her, she's very likable too.

The difference between Poirot and Miss Marple is that Poirot dives into the core of human psychology and all it's possible twisted states as a detective, while Miss Marple is just an elderly lady that lends her brains into cases she might come across. And mainly, Miss Marple does it by revisiting experiences from her life that remind her of certain aspects of the cases.

Both characters are absolutely lovely and breathtaking and even though they both have different approaches to solving cases, they're both very intuitive and their brains are wonderful in their own unique ways.

#book recommendations

[lebakasmadl]

Murder on the Orient Express

by Agatha Christie

a book review

(!Spoilers! duh)

Last week I read “Murder on the Orient Express”. The language used is quite simple and straight forward, not much energy is wasted on describing meaningless details. This in itself is not a big deal, however it is quite telling if a detail is mentioned, because then you rightfully would assume that it is a puzzle piece necessary to solve the murder. This does make it much more obvious and less fun to solve the mystery (which wasn’t rly possible anyway but oh well).

Let’s set the scene:

The Orient Express is filled to the brim with passengers during a cold winter night. An intense snow storm forces the train to stop dead in its tracks. In the morning, the train still not having moved, a body is discovered. Who could have done it? Fortunately Hercule Poirot, a skilled detective, is also on board and gets asked to take the case.

Here arises the first problem for me:

HERCULE POIROT

(I will admit, that this was the first book of Poirot I have ever read, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from him as a character)

I don’t want to lie, I did expect kind of a french Sherlock Holmes (Omg the French don’t get me started on that) However it is not exactly what Poirot is. He didn’t rly impress with crazy combination or observation skills. To me it felt as tho he was just quite good at guessing and got lucky a lot? Like A LOT. Plus he admitted that himself? Personally I would have preferred to look into his mind a little more, it would have made the whole thing much more interesting. It was a guessing game, however reading about how he concluded what to guess might have been more entertaining, especially considering that the reader was not privy to crucial information.

The only thing rly making him stand out knowledgewise was the trick that made the writing on the letter reappear. However that whole thing drove me up a tree anyway, since it was just a tad bit too much luck for my taste that he was able to recover a full name, which happened to be the main clue for why the victim was murdered. Also also him assuming Mr. Ratchetts real identity from just the name on the letter did not feel coherent to me. Like oh this man has a weird vibe to him and there is the name of a murdered girl on a letter in his room, he HAS TO BE a serial child killer. (???)

Sexism and weird nationality stuff?

When the body is discovered with 12 stab wounds to some men on the train the case seems to be nearly solved. It must have been a woman! Obviously only women get emotional enough to murder someone with more stabs than necessary. Men no emotion, men never emotion, emotion girly stuff. Except if u are italian than it might have been u since it “fits your southern temper”??? But do not worry, everyone in this book gets their fair share of prejudice and stereotype! I do understand it was a different time when the book was released, but unfortunately these parts aged like milk.

Who did it?

Sooo huge SPOILER: It was everyone on the train!

Midway thru the book I did think to myself, well what if it was everyone? Wouldn’t that be cool? It wouldn’t. I dismissed that thought since I decided it would be too lazy from a writers perspective. Once everyone committed the crime, no one did. All of a sudden it doesn’t matter who was where at what time and what they saw or heard. It stops being about collecting clues and simply becomes about mashing a bunch of people together in the most random guessing game to give all of them the same goal. As a result the final revelation was quiet unsatisfactory.

The Plan

Twelve people had all decided to kill a man, bc he was the murderer of a little girl, Daisy Armstrong, which they all were connected to. (Thank god Poirot happened to know so much about that case that happened years ago) The connection usually being that they had previously worked for the family of the girl or being directly related to her. This is a point I personally do find weird. Some had quite believable motives, while it seemed that others went along bc Daisy was kind of a cute child? That wouldnt rly be enough for me but go off Agatha.

Their plan was pretty complicated. They would one by one sneak into the victims room and every person would stab him ONE time. That way, they claim, it “would not be possible to tell who’s strike was the actual final blow that killed him” (humbug). Then they made up a whole spiel about a woman in a red kimono and a guy dressed up as a train conductor, planted fake clues and gave each other alibis.

Of course it was in their best interest to keep the wagon to themselves. No outsiders, no witnesses. For that reason they paid for an compartment in the train, knowing they didn’t actually have another person to fill it with. If Poirot and his homie would not have come along, the wagon would have only carried twelve murderers and one victim. Meaning that this crazy game of dressing up would have been completely unnecessary??? They even stated that they practiced the whole thing on their way east, so that they could go through with it on the way back. But WHY this complicated plan, if they had actually planned not to be sharing the wagon? It seems to be too elaborate for them to have made it up on the spot, once they realized they would not be traveling alone. Plus another question that bothers me: Bc there were no more first class compartments left, Poirot actually shared a second class one with one of the killers (McQueen) for the first nights. How did they plan to avoid that? It could have been anyone in that second class room and they only got lucky bc Bouc moved to the other wagon once it became possible, so that Poirot could sleep in a First class compartment. What would they have done, if someone would have just stayed with Mr. McQueen in his bunk bed for the whole ride???

Conclusion

Why is this considered a classic?

Unfortunately I have to admit to not rly having liked this book so I can not recommend it. However if u haven’t read it yet, maybe go do so just so that we can have a chat about it. If u have already read it: Feel free to answer my questions and/or tell me about your opinion. I’ll be waiting.

All in all one round match out of twelve stab wounds

#murder on the orient express #agatha christie #book review #bookshelf #reading #hercule poirot #murder mystery #my opinion #my post

[spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub]

Reading Agatha Christie: Three Act Tragedy

The 1930s Christie was writing a plethora of Hercule Poirot books, and while I love Poirot, this one is somewhat disappointing in that he isn’t really around for most of the book.  He pops up at the beginning, and then at the end to tell it like it is.  And, it’s a bit disappointing, really.  Why even have him in here?  

The book is based around a dinner party, where an unexpected reverend is poisoned.  Later, many of the same group of people are at another dinner party, and this time a doctor is poisoned.  (I got a kick that it was Dr. Strange who unfortunately was killed.)  The whole mystery is based around, not only why these two men were killed, but how they’re linked.  

There’s an interesting premise here, and I think Christie’s cleverness in how she pulls this one off is worth discussion.  But I think as a story, it’s rather dull.  Mr. Satterthwaite of Mysterious Mr. Quin is around, but not nearly as fun, since he’s not hallucinating harlequins.  It’s a shame he and Poirot don’t go out to solve this one together, because the few times they interact are really quite a joy.  

A big chunk of this story is also revolving around a love triangle -- the young Hermione “Egg” Lynton Gore and her possible suitors, the much older actor Charles Cartwright and her bff from childhood Oliver Manders.  Egg is of the same vein of most of Christie’s plucky young heroines, but not nearly as memorable as the ones who’ve come before.   

There really aren’t other subplots, either, which kind of makes the other characters in the novel rather dull.  There’s a big chunk of the book which is dedicated to interviewing people in the households, and unlike Murder on the Orient Express where the characters and mystery are intriguing enough to keep you glued through ten-ish interviews, this book’s detective work feels more like padding to make it novel length. 

It’s still a solid work.  I think the elements of how Christie portrays the novel, and the cleverness in how she works the murderer in is really genius.  But I think the initial idea for this book is more interesting than the book itself.  

#s.o. reads agatha christie #agatha christie #three act tragedy

[anntoldst0ries]

Diagnosis

I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who read my previous fic and left such kind comments. You can’t imagine how much I appreciate this!

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x f!MC (Vicky Valentine)

Word Count: 2,911

Summary: Dr Ramsey attempts to diagnose the most difficult case in his career...his own.

Warnings: None! A lot of introspection again and hints of angst :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ethan Ramsey considered himself a brave man.

He always had the courage to say whatever he wanted to say or what had to be said - be that a terminal diagnosis, savaging someone’s speech at a medical conference (only if the speaker was talking nonsense, that is), scolding an intern - you name it. 

With years of experience under his belt, Dr Ramsey excelled at the “art” of saying the most horrible, unpleasant and inconvenient things. It was a process he took to pieces and mastered every tiniest part.

He knew exactly what they were whispering behind his back in the hospital corridors. Dr Ramsey is a bully. A ruthless cynic. No one survived more than 3 minutes of his tirades without bursting into tears. Or, as some of the interns so lovingly put it, he was “the only survivor of a heart transplant”. The last remark had been conveyed to him by Baz, who found it hilarious…and so did Naveen. It took one deadly look to silence Baz forever, however Naveen used every occasion to remind his protégé of hospital’s favourite joke:

‘How’s your heart, Ethan?’

‘Good, why are you as—‘ Ethan didn’t have a chance to finish answering the question, interrupted by Dr Banerji who was in convulsions.

‘God, Naveen, for such a bright mind and one of the best doctors in the world, I still find it hard to believe that you have a sense of humour of a 5 year old’

‘There is nothing wrong with some joy, Ethan. You should try it sometimes, it may do you good.’

Similar conversations took place on a regular basis, but they always ended with Ethan rolling his eyes and Naveen sighing. Younger doctor would never, ever tell his mentor off, he respected him too much. So Ethan let Dr Banerji have some fun at his expense from time to time.

But, truth be told, he kept his emotions at a leash and he was good at it, because there wasn’t a thing in Ethan’s life that he wasn’t good at. Regardless of what it was - saving people’s lives or emotional self-deprivation.

That’s why reminiscing past 2 years was so hard for accomplished diagnostician. He couldn’t help but think that he’s lived more during this time than he’s lived during his whole life. His existence wasn’t a boring one, he loved his job and the cases that the team had to crack were mostly complex and thus exciting. There was also a sense of fulfilment and servitude to a greater cause.

As a kid, Ethan wanted to be a detective. It all started with Alan buying his son one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books. There was no hidden intention in this choice - Alan simply ran out of book ideas, Ethan was literally gobbling up the books at his disposal and was thirsty for more. Therefore, Mr Ramsey picked picked one of the thickest positions available in the book shop, with hopes it will keep Ethan occupied for at least a couple of weeks. Oh, how wrong he was - 5 days later his son was already begging for more.

Sherlock Holmes and Hercules Poirot quickly took the top spot on the list of Ethan’s childhood heroes. He was obsessed with their investigative methods, their sharp minds that captured even the tiniest of details and how missing those nuances would make solving a mystery a lot harder, if not impossible. 

That’s why he became obsessed with details. He analysed, compared, observed and noted down everything around him with deliberation. After a while, Ethan realised that these skills come handy in various areas of life. He could read people and to a degree foresee what their next move was going to be. If he wanted to, he could probably try and influence their decisions too. If it wasn’t for Alan’s upbringing, this particular skill might have taken his life onto a dark track, but fortunately he utilised it for greater good.

Having this sort of insight made him very self-conscious and he never turned away from reliving his own decisions and behaviours, which helped him become a better doctor, every single day. But he never wallowed in the mud of emotions, instead always operating on facts.

But for the past couple of months, this process became a pure torture. 

You know what they say, the devil is in the detail. And the devil it was indeed. 

The devil that would be the death of Ethan was 5’4, had raven hair, plumped lips, mesmerising eyes and a captivating laugh. 

Suddenly, he heard the devil’s voice in his head.

‘Are you pinching the bridge of your nose right now?’ 

He was.

‘God dammit!’ - shouted Ethan, so loud that he startled poor Jenner, who resigned from occupying the sofa and ran straight to his bed. Even the retriever, in his doggy wisdom, knew that when his master was upset, it was best to stay out of his sight and wait for the storm to pass.

Whenever Dr Ramsey had a serious dilemma, he would subtly join his thumb and index finger to pinch the gentle skin between eyes. She knew of this somewhat subconscious habit and teased him about it countless times. 

With most people, the whole observing and reading process was a one-sided game. For majority of mortals, Ethan was a closed book and they had no idea how to open, let alone read it. But not Rookie. She saw right through him. Ethan considered himself a riveting mystery thriller before, if we’re talking comparisons, but right now he was probably a cheap Harlequin. How did he sink so low in practically no time?

The answer came before he was even able to finish the question.

He was hopelessly, utterly and irreversibly in love with Dr Vicky Valentine.

“Victoria….” he whispered. He knew her full name, he’s read her bloody application and her employee file many, many times. More than he’d ever care to admit. Neither him nor anyone else addressed her by her full name. She always introduced herself as Vicky and even mentioned to him, June & Baz one time that she considered herself too young to be a bearer of such gracious name. But when the name fell out of his lips, it made perfect sense. Victoria. Victory. After a long, tough and heartbreaking battle, she’s won all of him. And man, wasn’t she fighting fiercely. 

She was so much like him, and yet so different. Patients loved her, and for a good reason - not only was she amazing at her job, but also so genuinely caring about every patient she met. Somehow, she was able to see past people weary of their conditions, instead she always noticed the human beings with their unique stories. Thanks to her, patients never felt like sickness became their identity, but merely a stage in their life that shall soon pass. 

Hospital staff adored her as well, she had time and a huge smile for everyone; her bright aura lit up every room she walked into and was a pleasure to be around. 

Those who knew Ethan a bit better or worked with him were aware of the insanely high standards he was holding himself to. And it would have been fine if they only applied to him, but he held everyone else to the same standard too. It was his buffer. Most gave up without even trying, it was humanly impossible to live up to such expectations. And that was the goal. Dr Ramsey wanted no distractions and if anyone wanted so much as approach him, they had a giant wall to jump over first.

But the young intern wasn’t bothered in the slightest. Dozens of people before her stood in front of the wall and tried to figure out how to get in. And she… she just found a tiny gap and squeezed right through. Before Ethan realised what’s going on, it was already too late. And she wasn’t even fully aware of what she’s done.

Like air, she’s entered his life imperceptibly, filling every space until there was nothing else. She was in every reflection he saw, every smile, every freaking thing a reminder of her, one way or another.

He was completely under her spell, enchanted, drunk in the thought of her.

The most ironic part was that if he went by his unreasonable standards, she’d never stand a chance.

She was messy, she was a klutz, she laughed too loud and rounded her eyes like a child when something seriously excited her.

And yet, something about her made him break all of his rules, lower his guard and re-think everything he’s ever thought he knew and believed in. 

Obviously, he wouldn’t be himself if the occupational quirk did not kick in at some point. Whatever the cause, Dr Ramsey had to get to the bottom of it, no matter how many tests did he have to run on his mind and heart. He needed the diagnosis so he could start the treatment. But his sharp diagnostic skills which made him a famous man, suddenly decided to go on unplanned vacation and it looks like they were not coming back anytime soon.

Ambivalence became Ethan’s newest companion. Some days, he thought he was going to blow his brains out, the others he was strangely content and did not want to analyse anything, things were good just as they were.

For the first time in his life, he felt truly lost. He felt like Jon Snow, he knew nothing. It wasn’t a result of one event, rather a chain reaction. Starting with Naveen getting sick, the inability to figure out what was wrong with his mentor made Ethan seriously doubt his capabilities as a doctor. Then, Louise Ramsey made a surprise reappearance after having walked out on him and his dad 25 years earlier. When he was little, his dad use to say that wherever Louise goes, trouble follows and it wasn’t any different this time. She brought company - insecurity, sorrow, resentment - to name just a few. Ethan felt like someone ripped a band aid from his heart and painfully reminded him that all the wounds are still alive and never really healed. 

And finally, Edenbrook. The place that others saw as walls, glass, beds, people in white coats, sickness, illness, death. To him, it was much, much more. The hospital had almost a transcendental dimension. It was here that Ethan’s transition had been completed. He shed his old skin and became Dr Ramsey, the person he was always meant to be.

That’s why Edenbrook closing hit him so hard - a part of him was about to die and be buried beneath years of sweat, tears and effort. It was probably the hardest thing to come to terms with in the 37 years that he’s been walking on the surface of the Earth.

And throughout all these events, she was with him.

She never gave up on Naveen and Ethan knew that there was more to it than just saving Edenbrook’s most prominent doctor. He believed, he wanted to believe that she did this for him too. 

The memory brought shame that drained off him like unpleasant wave of cold water. Ethan never really forgave himself for just laying in his bed like a drunk bag of potatoes, whilst she was busting her gut to solve the case, even though she had ethics hearing to prepare for. A hearing that could make or break her whole career, before she even had a chance to start.

Dr Ramsey would like to think they were alike. But as a matter of fact, she was a much better person than him.

Then, with his mother in the picture, she never told him what to do. Even though he asked, many times. He hoped someone can actually make the decision for him, because it hurt so much to even think about this, let alone decide what to do next. But she never did. She was just there and by simply being, she empowered him to make his own, informed decision. 

She was there, like no one else was in his entire life. Not to take anything from Naveen, who had tremendous effect on Ethan’s life - but this was completely different.

She penetrated his soul.

She made him feel.

Love.

It was the first time he used this word in a long, long time. 

And maybe, quite possibly, for the first time in his life he used it with intention. 

He thought he felt it once before. 

When he was a student at Johns Hopkins, Ethan met Camille. She was a year older than him, with angelic voice and looks, the cascade of blond locks surrounding her gentle facial features like a halo. 

What impressed him was that she kept hitting up on him, not the other way round. He’s had his mind set on graduating as a top student in his class and then getting the best residency there was - in Edenbrook hospital in Boston. It was either him or someone else. University romances were of no interest to him, or so he thought. After all, he’s just gone past his teenage years and was relatively new to the world of intimate human desires. As much as he tried to push them away, he had needs and his hormones were still a giant part of his decision-making process, doesn’t matter how hard he tried denying it.

Also, there was something motherly about her and she reminded him of the woman who left him when he was just a boy. It was completely fucked-up, he hated his mother and yet a memory of her and how he’d once do anything for her was tattooed in the insides of his brain.

Ethan and Camille shared a passion for medicine, music and opera. A few times, he was close to bringing her down to Providence, to introduce her to Alan, his father. But there was this weird voice in his head stopping him. 

Maybe that’s why he wasn’t overly surprised when one day he walked on Camille. In his bed. Screaming and making other explicit sounds…except, he wasn’t the igniter. It was none other than his best friend at the time, Tobias. Ethan would never forget the jealous glance he shot him with when he first brought Camille to one of the student parties. And then things got worse. Ethan and Tobias always competed and for a long time it was a fuel that kept them both going. But when someone wins, someone has to lose. Neither of them was good at losing or accepting the failure. 

Ethan was doing better than his best friend. Not significantly better, the difference between them had usually been slight, but it was there. Tobias couldn’t swallow this. Not only was Ethan doing better than him, he also had one of the most beautiful students at Hopkins by his side. Jealousy started to spread inside him like a wildfire and since his attempts to beat Ethan at school were futile, he decided to make use of his other skills. Tobias was a born flirter and charmer. He often used to say that no woman can resist his spell and that “where there’s a woman - there’s a way.”

Dr Ramsey never told anyone, but having found out that his girlfriend cheated on him with his best friend was sort of relief. Call it sixth sense, an intuition… subconsciously he sort of felt that she wasn’t a girl for him. As for Tobias, he was tired of the fight….of Tobias fighting with him, that is. Ethan wasn’t fighting, he was just a better student and was going to be a better doctor. He was tired of petty competition and how the toxin poisoned their relationship.

So they actually made him a favour and helped him killed 2 birds with 1 stone - he was saved from having an awkward break-up conversation that he’s never went through before and he now had every right to hate Tobias. He didn’t really, as such feelings were a waste of energy, but a week later Tobias moved out of their shared apartment and they never really spoke again.

After Camille, he was only in a brief relationship once. With Harper. He deeply admired and respected her, but when things started getting too serious (from her side), he distanced himself. And so, for a couple of years to follow, they were on the off and on again terms. They went through countless friends with benefits stages, but he genuinely enjoyed her company. They just never wanted the same things, which became more and more evident as she was getting older. And he respected her too much to mess her around.

Ethan’s career was everything to him and he accepted the fact that falling in love and having a family is just not in the cards for him.

Or so he thought.  

Dr Valentine entered his life one September morning and hasn’t left ever since. And, hell, hasn’t he tried to erase her. To make her hate him. To draw a line between work and personal life. He could honestly say that he tried everything.

For the love of God, he ran to fucking Amazon! He tried to hide from all things Dr Valentine, like a fool who forgot one of the most basic rules of life: there is no running away from yourself. 

Tag list (please let me know if you wish to be removed): @terrm9 @openheart12 @openheartthot @rookie-ramsey @alwaysmychoices @brooks-eden @drethanramslay @starrystarrytrouble @justanotherrookie @caseyvalentineramsey@incorrectopenheart @heauxplesslydevoted @perriewinklenerdie @mercury84choices @archxxronrookie @renasalek-blog @maurine07 @whippedforethanfreakingramsey @lemonmiddleton @tsrookie @choicesfan10 @dr-colossal-pita @queencarb @gryffindordaughterofathena @qrkowna @aarisa-frost @choicesficwriterscreations

#open heart #dr ethan ramsey #dr ethan jonah ramsey #dr ramsey x mc #ethan ramsey #open heart choices #dr valentine #play choices #open heart fanfiction #open heart fic #choices fic writers creations #fics of the week

[poirott]

So who is Annette Bening playing. Her character is listed as Euphemia --- but no such character was in Christie's novel.

Hello and thank you for your message! You’re not the first person to be curious about this, there’s been some confusion as to which Death on the Nile character she's playing!

IMDb credits her as "Euphemia" and there’s no character of that name in the book. She sounds like a new character, likely a combination of existing characters the screenwriter molded into one.

My theory is she's a version of Mrs Allerton, Tim Allerton's mother. In the book Mrs Allerton serves mostly as a sounding board and source of gossip and “tea” for Poirot, someone he can talk to and spend time with on the trip. She's only there to share all the chatter she's heard about the other passengers, Linnet’s high society life, etc. Poirot calls her the most charming woman he's ever met or something like that, but she’s not a super important character at the grande scheme of things.

Bening standing together with Tom Bateman’s Bouc in the promo photo made me wonder if they’ve turned her into an old friend of Poirot's who's known Poirot and Bouc for years, or if she's maybe related to Bouc (aunt, mum). Or if maybe Poirot trusted her to take care of Bouc on the cruise but she broke that trust somehow (Poirot pointing a gun at the group). There's so much we still don't know!

Another weird theory I had was she's actually Christie’s other famous sleuth, Miss Marple, traveling under a nickname. It's a far-fetched idea, yeah, and Miss Marple wouldn’t know much about high society, or stand aside and let Poirot solve the case on his own, she’d want to be a part of it. He’d never get a minute of peace with her on board! :) They’d make a fantastic team, though (Holmes/Poirot/Marple is my personal favourite master sleuth trifecta). When I remember Christie originally wanted Miss Marple to be the detective in DOTN, it’s not that silly of a theory after all to have her there, but I think it would be better if she was introduced at the end as a little cameo, as a new passenger boarding the Karnak when Poirot’s trip is over. It’s just a fun thing to think about on top of all the other theories about the movie. Euphemia admitting her real name is Jane, Jane Marple. Goosebumps! And then she’d get her own movie.

It’s more likely (or at least that's what they want us to think?) she is a combination of characters because the suspect list in DOTN is very long and it would be hard for the general audience to remember them all. It makes sense to get rid of certain names or combine them. The previous adaptations did the same. I've always felt Mrs Allerton was a bit of a pointless character. Making Euphemia a more interesting and important version of Mrs Allerton sounds the most plausible theory to me at the moment.

Another possibility: Bening is actually Salome Otterbourne, even though Sophie Okonedo is credited with the role, but, again, I doubt it’s true. Someone in the tags was saying the other day Salome in the trailer seems more like a singer than a novelist. Maybe that's just Salome being Salome, she's theatrical and passionate and wants to entertain people, and it seems in this version she can also sing. Why not? Maybe the joke is she sings poorly and everyone has to go through the torture of hearing her perform night after night, putting on happy faces so she doesn't get upset. :) Okonedo as Salome is great casting and I can’t wait to see what she does with the role. <3

Sorry my reply got so ranty! Cheers!

#Anonymous #replies #death on the nile

[adeliaharris]

My Favorite Books...

1. Harper Lee "To kill a Mockingbird"

The story of a small sleepy town in the South of America told by a little girl. The story of her brother Jim, dill's friend and her father - the honest principled lawyer Atticus Finch one of the last and best representatives of the old "southern aristocracy". The story of the trial of a black guy accused of rape a white girl. But first of all it is the story of a turning era when xenophobia, racism, intolerance and bigotry inherent in the American South are warming to the past. The "wind of change" has just begun to blow over America. What will it bring?

- This is probably one of my favorite books.The book captured from the very first pages and did not let go for a long time after reading. You can say a lot of things but better read it.

2. Khaled Hosseini "The Kite Runner"

A heartfelt story of friendship and fidelity, betrayal and redemption, penetrating to the very core. Delicate, ironic and sentimental in a good way, Khaled Hosseini's novel resembles a painting that can be looked at endlessly set in pre-war Kabul in the 1970s. In this magical city shimmering with all shades of gold and azure two weather boys Amir and Hasan live. One belonged to the local aristocracy the other to a despised minority. One's father was handsome and important the other was lame and pathetic. Master and servant, prince and beggar, handsome and crippled. But there were no people in the world closer than these two boys. Soon the Kabul idyll will be replaced by formidable storms. And the boys, like two kites, will be picked up by this storm and scattered in different directions. Each has its own destiny its own tragedy but they like in childhood are tied by the strongest bonds. You run after the kite and the wind as you run after your destiny, trying to catch it. But she will catch you.

- Psychological novel on the theme of "crime and punishment". Deeply elaborated images, convincing children's characters, a remarkably built plot - everything speaks of a great master. For me it is "heavy" literature but it has the right to be because it calls things by their proper names. And most importantly there is light in the stories of Hosseini! The light of true human feelings.

3. F. Scott Fitzgerald "The Great Gatsby"

A jubilant, sparkling thirst for life, a desire for love, alluring and elusive, exciting pursuit of wealth - but now the dream breaks to the sound of jazz and the eternal holiday turns into a tragedy. "The Great Gatsby" is a novel about "how illusions are wasted which make the world so colorful that  having experienced this magic, a person becomes indifferent to the concept of true and false." F. S. Fitzgerald

- I read it and was not at all disappointed! Elegant presentation with high meaning - everything in this life is done for the sake of love. And no amount of money can replace the woman you love... And even if she is stupid, frivolous and idly living her life. I have great respect for Gatsby and contempt for Daisy. There are a lot of wonderful quotes, phrases in the book, it's worth thinking about. I didn’t expect to literally fall in love with this piece! In the future I will definitely re-read it more than once!

4. Daniel Keyes "Flowers for Algernon"

Forty years ago it was considered a fantasy. Forty years ago it read like fantasy. Exploring and expanding the boundaries of the genre eagerly absorbing all sorts of newest trends trying on a common human face bravely ignoring the Cain's stamp of the "genre ghetto". Now it is perceived as one of the most humane works of modern times as a novel of piercing psychological power, as a filigree development of the theme of love and responsibility. It is not for nothing that Keyes called his book of memoirs published in the 1990s "Algernon, Charlie and Me."

- The book is an emotion that will not make you think about something particularly difficult. All the thoughts that it generates are very simple and understandable. Without revelations, of course, but not bad either. The assessment will, rather, depend on the degree of personal sensitivity because the author often uses the concept of "naive hero-evil reality-collision-squeezing out sympathy" during the work.

5. Agatha Christie  "Murder on the Orient Express"

The great detective Hercule Poirot who was in Istanbul returns to England on the famous "Orient Express" in which it seems, representatives of all possible nationalities travel with him. One of the passengers an unpleasant American named Ratchett offers Poirot to become his bodyguard since he believes that he could be killed. The famous Belgian brushes off this absurd request. And the next day the American is found dead in his compartment with the doors closed and the window open. Poirot immediately takes up the investigation - and finds out that the compartment is full of all sorts of evidence pointing... to almost all the passengers of the Orient Express. In addition the train gets stuck in snow drifts in a deserted place. Poirot needs to find the killer before the express can continue on its way...

- I liked the book. Pretty easy to read. The plot is "confused" from the very beginning but Mr. Poirot is yet  a world-famous detective. It is better to read about all the twists and turns of the investigation on your own, "immersion" is guaranteed.

6. Stieg Larsson "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

Forty years of the mystery of the disappearance of a young relative haunts the aging industrial tycoon and now he makes the last attempt in his life - entrusts his search to journalist Mikael Blomkvist. He takes on a hopeless business more in order to distract himself from his own troubles but soon realizes: the problem is even more complicated than it seems at first glance.

What is the connection between a long-standing incident on the territory with the use of mobile devices which happened in different years in different parts of Sweden? What does the quotation from the Third Book of Moses have to do with it? And who, after all, attempted on the life of Michael himself when he came too close to the solution?

- The whole trilogy left a deep impression. Such books appear very rarely. Out-of-the-box characters, amazing Sweden, dark atmosphere. I advise absolutely everyone!

7. Ray Bradbury "Fahrenheit 451"

Perhaps the best of Bradbury's writings. The story "Fahrenheit 451" depicts a dystopian society of the future but in fact - "our reality, reduced to absurdity." Bradbury invented a state where reading and keeping books is prohibited. For the sake of political correctness and general peace of mind the general level of spiritual and intellectual demands of citizens is artificially lowered. But there are rebels and fugitives.

This is one of Bradbury's rare sci-fi works. Very exciting touching and at the same time very lively and dynamic. With a relatively simple plot, it is full of allusions including biblical texts and complex symbolism.

- This is just a great book! I advise everyone to read it! Despite the fact that the author wrote it in 1953 this does not feel at all. A very interesting and poignant plot for our time.

8. Victor Hugo "Les Miserables"

All the works of the great French poet, novelist and playwright Victor Marie Hugo (1802-1885) are covered with a halo of romanticism. The idea of ​​life-giving love, mercy, the triumph of good over evil - this is the core of his novel "Les Miserables". Among the "outcasts" are Jean Valjean sentenced to 20 years for stealing bread for his starving family and the little dirty Cosette who turned into a charming girl and a child of the Parisian streets of Gavroche...

- Brilliant work! So thoughtful, so overwhelming and so humane. The inimitable Hugo put all his philanthropy into this magnificent novel!

9. Stephen King "The Green Mile"

Stephen King invites readers to the eerie world of the death row where they leave in order not to return, opens the door of the last refuge of those who have transgressed not only human but also God's law. There is no more deadly place on this side of the electric chair! Nothing you've read before beats Stephen King's most audacious horror experience - a story that begins on Death Road and goes deep into the deepest secrets of the human soul...

- I have been familiar with the work of S. King for a long time and have read more than a dozen of his books. The work "The Green Mile" is a story that will not let you go for a long time. She leaves a residue in her soul - mixed feelings and indescribable impressions from the story itself, unique and ingenious.

10. Gregory David Roberts "Shantaram"

This art-refracted confession of a man who managed to get out of the abyss and survive, has sold four million copies around the world and has earned rave comparisons with the works of the best writers of the modern era from Melville to Hemingway. Like the author the hero of this novel has been hiding from the law for many years. Deprived of parental rights after a divorce from his wife, he became addicted to drugs, committed a number of robberies and was sentenced by an Australian court to nineteen years in prison. Having escaped from a maximum security prison in his second year, he reached Bombay where he was a counterfeiter and smuggler, traded arms and participated in the showdown of the Indian mafia and also found his true love, to lose it again, to find it again...

- It is very difficult to somehow categorically evaluate this novel. There are many advantages here: a fascinating story of the wanderings of the protagonist in the world of a harsh exotic country. Together with him, the reader develops, absorbs the alien culture and energy of other people, people of another world to which we are not used to. However there is something ridiculous about this.  At times it seems that we are watching real Indian cinema - the brainchild of Bollywood naive and merciless. In general I liked the novel, it is interesting, bright, impetuous. During the period of reading this great story, I have never been bored. Despite some controversial points - I advise!

#book #books #classic #detective #drama #romance #comedy

[mjmnorwood]

[I.D. A header image of two pencils on a yellow background, with title reading ‘Writing a Mystery’. End I.D.]

I love mysteries. I confess to being a naturally nosy person, so a mystery is the perfect plot for me. And because I love to read them, I also love to write them! Here are a few tips I’ve learned over the years for making mysteries intriguing and effective.

Know your plot inside and out.

Mysteries are some of the most carefully-plotted stories out there, and they need to be. The audience will be considering how everything links into the mystery, so you can’t have any surplus plot elements. Mind-mapping ideas and making an outline is incredibly helpful (and it can also be useful to have a second, secret outline of what the culprit is doing to cover their tracks while the sleuth investigates).

It is also possible to pants a mystery (I know because I’ve done it), it’s just that after the first draft is done, you have to put a lot of thought into re-organising things to make your story as well-structured as possible. This can involve being pretty merciless with cuts, just to forewarn you!

Milk your clues for all they’re worth.

A lot of people think of mysteries as sequential. The sleuth finds one clue which leads to another clue which leads to another clue which eventually leads to a solution. However, they are in actual fact a lot twistier than that. To keep the reader on their toes, you want uncertainty and misdirection, and a great place to do this is with the clues. Throw in red herrings and ambiguous clues to keep the sleuth (and the audience) guessing. You’ll find that when your clues are working hard, you don’t actually need all that many—when you get down to it, most mysteries only have about 3-5 clues that are really significant!

Balance your resolution.

There are two routes you can go down when writing the suspects in a mystery: making the audience feel like anyone could have done it, and making them feel like no-one could have done it. Both of these routes are suspenseful, and you usually want to maintain them until the final deductions are made, at which point the most satisfying mysteries make the audience smack their heads as the clues fall together and they realise that only the culprit could have done it and think why didn’t we see this before? It can be hard to make this moment come at exactly the right point, but having a tight plot makes it so much easier (which is why the first point is so important).

Give your audience something other than the plot to be invested in.

An intriguing mystery is a great hook, but keeping the reader invested takes more than that. Interesting characters and settings are SO important—when you think about it, the most famous detectives (e.g. Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple) are memorable because they’re interesting personalities. And the side characters are just as important. Natural human curiosity is what draws us into a mystery, but empathy for the people involved is what really keeps us turning the pages to see how things turn out for them.

Remember mysteries can be more varied than you think.

When you think of a mystery novel, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a murder mystery, but you are not limited by this! It’s true that murders often feel like they have the highest stakes, but you can totally write mysteries about trying to discover a stolen watch, finding out who vandalised that expensive painting, figuring out who left that mysterious note, and a whole host of other possibilities! You also aren’t limited to 1930s country-house mysteries or fast-paced modern thrillers. Mystery plots work great in other genres too (in fact, mystery combined with fantasy or sci-fi is one of my all-time fave things!). And finally, you can play about with the traditional structure of information reveals and have the audience know things your characters don’t...

Reading list -

As with all aspects of writing, I think the best way to learn mysteries is to read plenty of them. As I said in the intro, they’re one of my fave things, so I have plenty of recommendations!

The Cadfael Chronicles by Ellis Peters. The mysteries in these books are wonderfully intriguing, and the historical setting is so well-drawn. The whole series is fantastic, but if you don’t want to commit to twenty books, I particularly recommend The Sanctuary Sparrow.

The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. Both the books and the TV miniseries are brilliant, and I think the character work is particularly fine in these stories. Mma Ramotswe is one of my favourite sleuths (and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is the most wholesome love interest!).

The Provost’s Dog trilogy by Tamora Pierce. This is an excellent example of mystery woven into another genre (YA fantasy).

The novella The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold. This also has mystery in another genre (sci-fi this time) and it shows that you don’t need a book-length mystery chock-full of clues to be interesting. TMoM is less than 100 pages, but still pulls off an incredibly well-done mystery (and makes me tear up every time!).

For my last recommendation (since this list is getting long...) I put forward The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. This book is ASTONISHINGLY tightly plotted. I know ‘I couldn’t put it down’ is a cliché, but I really couldn’t put it down.

Like this post? Follow for more writerly content! It’ll be lovely to have you along :D

#writing advice #writing tips #writing help #writeblr #plot #mystery #writing #writers #writers on tumblr #writblr #writeblr community #long post #original

[toughbookie]

7 Books in 7 Days

I Stumbled across a few YouTube videos about this “7 Books in 7 Days” challenge going on on the internet.

I got curious and after absolutely no research or further preparation, I decided to do that as well; I would have read seven books in a week.

Aaaaand here’s pretty much how it went.

DAY 1: The book I couldn’t find in English

Title: Storia di una balena bianca raccontata da lei stessa

Author: Luis Sepúlveda

Pages: 107

Rate: 5/5

Having started in the early evening, I had to pick a book that was short enough for me to finish on the same day. The choice fell on this tiny masterpiece by Sepúlveda, whose literature I wasn’t familiar with (boy, will that change during this reading challenge) aside from The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly, read years and years and year and years ago.

What I thought I was going forward was a nice, cute little novel.

I.

Was.

Wrong.

This actually kind of broke me.

Based on the story of Moby Dick - which in turn is based on the true story of the Essex, a whaler that left the island of Nantucket in 1819 only to be destroyed by the giant sperm whale the crew was after to acquire the oil to power lamps… Look, life sucked before we got electricity - this book is narrated by the giant white whale in the flesh. As you might have guessed by now, we’re not talking about the happiest story ever.

What starts as an observation from the young whale’s eyes of the resourcefulness and curiosity of mankind, quickly transforms into a condemnation of its cruelty and disrespect for nature.

Beautifully written, I definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves angst and can speak Italian or Spanish (I couldn’t find an English version).

I really had a good time with it. And also a good cry. I’m fragile.

DAY 2: The book about a murder

Title: The body in the library

Author: Agatha Christie

Pages: 215

Rate: 4/5

For the second day of this challenge, I’ve decided to throw myself into a novel featuring Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple.

In this crime novel, the body of a young woman is found in the library of Mr. and Mrs. Bantry’s house. The problem: nobody knows this girl or how she got in there. It’s going to be up to the police and, naturally, to Miss Marple, to find the truth.

I have discovered Agatha Christie only recently but it’s undeniable that she deserves all my love. It’s been fun to read this book and develop theories to find out who the murderer was and how and why they acted. It was like piecing a puzzle together. This is my first reading featuring Miss Marple, and I found her quite impressive. Unlike her “colleague”, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple is not a detective, she’s just people smart, and it’s delightful to follow her around on her adventures.

Unfortunately the finale didn’t satisfy me that much, but it was still pretty good. Definitely recommended.

DAY 3: The long one

Title: The temptation to be happy

Author: Lorenzo Marone

Pages: 268

Rate: 3.5/5

Note: The more I think about this book, the more I feel like it doesn’t fully deserve its 3.5 rating. Consider it as an “almost 4”, please and thank you.

On the third day, I faced the longest book of the ones I had chosen. And, since life happened and I had other things to do around, I risked not finishing it on time (no worries, I managed).

The story is one of a cynical 77 years old widow: Cesare Annunziata. He doesn’t really care much about the people around him, except his daughter and son whom he loves even though of course he doesn’t know how to show it. Up until here, it’s honestly pretty standard and it has its cliches.

Everything changes when Cesare realizes that his new neighbor, Emma, is a victim of domestic abuse and lives in fear of her husband. The old man and the woman form an improbable friendship aaaaand I don’t want to get into spoiler territory, even tho the story is actually quite simple and sometimes predictable.

The best part about this, however, is not the story. The characters are what really brings the book to life, with a perfect balance of goofy and more serious personalities. It’s people we could meet every day, and that’s what really makes it good. Not full of plot twist, but it’s not meant to be.

Reading Lorenzo Marone was a pretty nice way to spend the day.

DAY 4: The other book about the murder

Title: A Caribbean mystery

Author: Agatha Christie

Pages: 230

Rate: 4/5 

Another day, another Agatha Christie’s novel. In this sunny and colorful environment, new murders have happened and new assassins have to be found.

Miss Marple, on holidays in the Caribbean, is having quite a good time, except not much is going on around here. Lucky for her - and honestly, only for her… I mean, good for you that you have a hobby but you should really not enjoy dead people so much - old Major Palgrave is found dead in his room. What looks like a natural death to most is actually a deeper mystery, and it’s up to Miss Marple to dig up the truth and save the day before the assassin strikes again.

Again, making up theories and analyzing the characters is a lot of fun, and I actually found out who the assassin was, which is pretty rare because I’m dumb at mysteries.

At the end of this book I started to feel a bit tired and I got a bit of a headache. I loved reading it, but with work I never really have the time for long, intensive sessions that go on for multiple days in a row.

Still, the pleasure of reading this book made everything more bearable.

 DAY 5: The big fail

Title: Loving sabotage

Author: Amélie Nothomb

Pages: 62 out of 124

Rate: 1/5

God, I hated this book. Pretentious, boring, just bad. It didn’t even seem like there was a plot or the author was talking about anything in particular, just words put down one after the other without any true purpose.

Really felt like a waste of time. It was awful to get though. So I didn’t. Which, given my holiday was over and I had to go back to work, gave me a bit of a time problem.

DAY 5: Sepúlveda strikes back

Title: Patagonia Express

Author: Luis Sepúlveda

Pages: 127

Rate: 5/5

To save the day at the last minute, came Luis Sepúlveda with this short account of his travels in Patagonia.

Starting in Spain and exploring the very edge of the world, this collection is filled with wild characters and hilarious episodes that made me enjoy every single page. 

That is, after getting past that one chapter about lamb castration.

That was a weird one.

I’ve never liked this particular literary genre much, but Luis Sepúlveda gives an incredible description of the places he visited, the people he met and their own stories, which are particularly bizarre and told with incredible talent. It’s a pretty short book, so I don’t want to spoil anything, but you get the drill.

Possibly my favorite book out of this challenge, Patagonia Express is a delightful quick escape from the ordinary.

 DAY 6: Guess who’s back

Title: The old man who read love stories

Author: Luis Sepúlveda

Pages: 135

Rate: 3/5

So, Sepúlveda wasn’t originally supposed to stick around for so long, but here we go again.

As for The old man who read love stories, it’s possibly the book I liked the least from Sepúlveda. Which isn’t saying much, I still like his work a lot.

The story is one of old Antonio José Bolívar Proaño, and guess what: he likes to read love stories. 

That makes two of us, buddy.

He’s also an expert of the forest nearby the small town of El Idilio, and forced to hunt down a female of ocelot, along with a group of men from the town.

Through some flashbacks we also find out the story of his life and how he became to know the forest so well. That’s my favorite part of the novel, by the way.

While the book started well, it felt like it got lost somewhere around the second half, which was supposed to be the important, life-lessons-packed part. You know, the part you don’t want to get lost at.

By the last pages I was almost falling asleep, and thinking back a couple of days later I don’t really remember much of the story as a whole.

In total honesty, a lot of it might have been because it was the sixth book in as many days, and my three brain cells had been up to a lot more than they can usually stand. Plus, long work hours got in the way.

DAY 7: Because it’s Christmas

Title: Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

Author: Agatha Christie

Pages: 209

Rate: 3.5/5

A millionaire asshole. His children and their wives. A nephew and a family friend. A murder on Christmas night.

It would have been offensive to read so much Agatha Christie without any Hercule Poirot, and so here comes my dear detective, ready for the grand finale.

Also, it’s Christmas!! Christmas book!! Christmas spirit!! Quite literally I mean someone got killed -

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas is an interesting novel, full of well done characters and mystery. I had a good time reading it, as I always do with this kind of novels.

But I do have to say - it’s probably just me and other readers liked it fine - the finale really ruined it for me. It feels pulled out of nowhere at the last minute, and even though it was certainly a big surprise, it felt added like a second thought just to make an even bigger plot twist than what could have been.

Aside from that, it’s a good book and given the settings I dare say it’s the perfect reading for when it’s cold outside, maybe snowing, and you’re cuddling under a blanket with a nice warm cup of tea.

Or hot chocolate.

Pick your favorite, I won’t judge.

Conclusions:

So finally we’re at the end of this 7 Books in 7 days Challenge. It was very enjoyable, but also towards the end it got pretty draining and sometimes stressful to keep up with the reading schedule while squeezing into the day everything else life throws at you.

Doing that on a week of holidays instead three days, when I could have focused only on the books, it would have probably gone differently, maybe even attempting to tackle longer novels. But you know, we’re talking about reading 1139 pages in a week, which is not something I thought I was capable of doing.

So overall I’m proud of how I did.

Not sure if I’ll repeat this but I’m glad I’ve done it, at least this once, and I honestly recommend it.

Also I don’t want to read anything else until 2022.

Bookie, signing out.

#7 books in 7 days #books #reading challenge #agatha christie #luis sepúlveda #lorenzo marone #hercule poirot #miss marple #bookblogging #reading #the body in the library #a caribbean mystery #la tentazione di essere felici #novel #hercule poirot christmas #book review #i'm so tired #worth it

[couchdetective]

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

This is the first of the Hercule Poirot novels. It’s where Hastings first re-encounters Poirot in Britain. We never actually see their first meeting in Belgium in any of Christie’s books.

Styles was written in 1916, in the thick of WWI, and published shortly after in 1920 (in the US) and 1921 (in the UK). The story itself is set in WWI. The war forms the foundation of the plot, providing the reason why these characters are in this place at this time. The story’s not about the war, but the war allows for the story, and haunts the characters. There is so much quiet trauma in this book. Hercule Poirot is in the village of Styles St. Mary because he is a refugee, fleeing Belgium because of the war. Mrs. Inglethorpe, the grande dame of the village, has given him and other refugees aid. He’s a retired police detective, which is extremely weird to think about. Poirot is such an eccentric little bundle of quirks that it’s hard to imagine him working as part of an institution. He has also already had a distinguished career before his adventures in Britain even start.

As for Arthur Hastings (is there a more lolariously British name?), he is 30 years old, and has been invalided home from the Front, only to find a murder right there in the idyllic countryside. He’s at Styles Court because his friend John Cavendish lives there, with his stepmother Mrs. Inglethorpe (who is very rich and recently remarried to a much-younger man) and brother Lawrence. Hastings doesn’t know what he’s going to do with himself after the war, but his secret dream job is being a detective. He fancies himself very good at it. He thinks he’s progressed further than Poirot with Poirot’s own methods. Arthur Hastings gets compared to Dr. Watson, which is unjust; Watson is much smarter and more cognizant of his own limits, but Hastings is still endearing.

The Detective Work: Poirot in Styles uses methods that are less quintessentially Poirot than in later books. In the very next book, Murder on the Links, Poirot is militantly in favor of conducting his investigation based almost entirely on the psychology of the individuals concerned. Physical evidence-gathering is for people like Giraud, the detective Poirot mocks in Murder on the Links. It’s all very well, but the Hercule Poirots, the real great ones, just sit back, contemplate and reflect on the psychology, let the Girauds and Japps bring in the results of the physical investigation, contemplate the physical evidence in light of the psychology, and then come to the correct conclusion. It’s beneath Poirot to go around examining cigarette ash or fingerprints, and the real truth won’t be found there in any case.

But in Styles, Poirot personally conducts a close physical investigation, and relies heavily on the results of that investigation, in the manner of Giraud, or Sherlock Holmes. Here’s Poirot’s preliminary investigation of the murder scene in Styles (emphases added by me):

Poirot locked the door on the inside, and proceeded to a minute inspection of the room. He darted from one object to the other with the agility of a grasshopper...

...A small purple despatch-case, with a key in the lock, on the writing-table, engaged his attention for some time. He took out the key from the lock, and passed it to me to inspect. I saw nothing peculiar, however. It was an ordinary key of the Yale type, with a bit of twisted wire through the handle.

Next, he examined the framework of the door we had broken in, assuring himself that the bolt had really been shot. Then he went to the door opposite leading into Cynthia’s room. That door was also bolted, as I had stated. However, he went to the length of unbolting it, and opening and shutting it several times; this he did with the utmost precaution against making any noise. Suddenly something in the bolt itself seemed to rivet his attention. He examined it carefully, and then, nimbly whipping out a pair of small forceps from his case, he drew out some minute particle which he carefully sealed up in a tiny envelope.

On the chest of drawers there was a tray with a spirit lamp and a small saucepan on it. A small quantity of a dark fluid remained in the saucepan, and an empty cup and saucer that had been drunk out of stood near it...Poirot delicately dipped his finger into liquid, and tasted it gingerly.

For comparison, here’s Sherlock Holmes’s inspection of the murder scene at Number 3, Lauriston Gardens in his first story, A Study in Scarlet:

As he spoke, he whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying glass from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted noiselessly about  the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling, and once lying flat upon his face. So engrossed was he with his occupation that he appeared to have forgotten our presence, for he chattered away to himself under his breath the whole time, keeping up a running fire of exclamations, groans, whistles, and little cries suggestive of encouragement and of hope. As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded of a pure-blooded well-trained foxhound as it dashes backwards and forwards through the covert, whining in its eagerness, until it comes across the lost scent. For twenty minutes or more he continued his researches, measuring with the most exact care the distance between marks which were entirely invisible to me, and occasionally applying his tape to the walls in an equally incomprehensible manner. In one place he gathered up very carefully a little pile of grey dust from the floor, and packed it away in an envelope. Finally, he examined with his glass the word upon the wall, going over every letter of it with the most minute exactness. This done, he appeared to be satisfied, for he replaced his tape and his glass in his pocket.    

Obviously, these aren’t exactly the same! I’m not accusing Christie of plagiarizing Arthur Conan Doyle by any means. But there are elements in common: the animal comparisons, the whipping instruments out, the taking away tiny bits of evidence in an envelope. Christie, in Styles, is drawing Poirot in roughly the same tradition as Holmes, whereas later on she will have Poirot reject and mock the entire “foxhound” school of detecting. In Styles, Poirot also deduces the murder method by using scientific knowledge about bromides in the medicine precipitating the strychnine. This is another atypical detection method for Poirot. I think these atypicalities in Styles are largely due to Christie still figuring out the character in her first book. There is also a plausible in-universe explanation, however: in Styles, Poirot is just a refugee, not an established and famous private detective. The “foxhound” detectives won’t bring him their evidence. He has to get it himself.

At the same time, you can still see the importance of psychology in Poirot’s methods, even here. The murderer is the husband. It’s always the husband, and all the more so when it’s the much-younger husband of an older, extremely rich wife. On top of this, Poirot solves the case through his key psychological insight that Alfred Inglethorpe wants to be arrested, and his romantic insight as to who exactly Mrs. Raikes is having an affair with. Once he figures out that (1) Inglethorpe is trying to get arrested and tried before there’s sufficient evidence against him, thus obtaining protection against double jeopardy; (2) it is John Cavendish, and not Alfred Inglethorpe, who is carrying on with Mrs. Raikes,  Poirot knows what’s going on and can solve the case. The famous “little grey cells” get their first mention in Styles: it’s only in passing, and only once, not the mantra they will become later on, but they do show up.

The Detectives: Poirot keeps Hastings in the dark in this story, not by lying to him, but by allowing Hastings to rush to whatever absurd conclusion his mind finds appealing without correcting him. Hastings and Poirot don’t have a partnership, or even a mentor-protegé relationship. They are, and will remain, a perpetual quirky genius/amazed straight-man couple.

Poirot’s match-making, romantic tendencies also make their first appearance here. This isn’t a distraction from the mystery at all. Correctly figuring out who is romantically entangled with who, and who has feelings for who, is crucial to solving the mystery, like I said above about the Alfred Inglethorpe/Mrs. Raikes red herring and the John Cavendish/Mrs. Raikes dalliance. On top of that, realizing that Lawrence Cavendish was trying to shield Cynthia Murdoch, because he was in love with her and there was a ton of evidence against her, was important to figuring out Lawrence’s own behavior and his own innocence of the crime. But Poirot’s shipper tendencies don’t limit themselves to what’s relevant to solving the mystery. He actually allows John Cavendish to be tried for murdering Mrs. Inglethorpe (a hanging offense!), purely to spark a reconciliation between John and his wife Mary, who would otherwise be too proud to admit that they truly love each other after all. Good thing this is a Christie novel and no one suffers any trauma from being tried for their lives--at least no trauma that can’t be cured by the love of a good woman.

Poirot’s not the only romantic here, though. Hastings’s overly romantic sensibility, and loneliness (he’s staying with John Cavendish because he has no family or other close friends), leads him to propose to Cynthia Murdoch out of the blue. She correctly laughs at him and tells him to be careful, next time someone might accept him. The whole thing is funny, but with a background of sadness. The difference between Poirot and Hastings is that Poirot is a sort of cupid, arranging others’ romances, while Hastings is fundamentally a participant and not a background string-puller. He wants a romance for himself, and Poirot suggests their next mystery might provide him with one. Mon ami Hastings displays a total lack of deductive ability and a sentimental outlook. He’s a quintessential British stereotype, but the flattering kind, the way the British (at the height of their empire, too) wanted to see their average man: not the brightest (too much cleverness is foreign, not quite manly, hence why the detective here is a Belgian), but the most honorable and decent.

The Characters: Christie gets flack for her characterization that I think is undeserved. She frequently perpetrates the most flat, stereotypical characters ever, but also frequently manages to sketch depths and complications of character in just a few simple words. Styles features several examples of the latter. There’s Mrs. Inglethorpe, a rich woman who is generous but tries to dominate people through use of her charity, who is smart and yet foolish enough to marry a younger man out for her money.  There’s her son John, who seems like a beef-witted country squire, but is (as Poirot points out) sensitive enough to seek out a separate life when it seems his wife isn’t going to fall in love with him. Above all, there’s Mary Cavendish: proud, reserved, married her husband without love, but then fell in love with him after, only to see him pull away and have an affair because he doesn’t think she loves him, and then pulls away in her own turn, working as a Land Girl during the war, madly jealous of her husband, drugging people so she can snoop to find out about his affairs, and finally, passionately defending him when he’s on trial for his life.

Japp makes his first appearance in this novel as well, but does not mess anything up, nor does he make much of an impression.

The Tropes: There are many standard Christie tropes that make their first appearance here. There’s Mrs. Inglethorpe, the moneybags matriarch who is controlling and nurturing in the same breath, whose adult children are taken care of by her but also trapped in stifling dependence on her. This is echoed in Gordon Cloade in Taken at the Flood/There is a Tide, Aristide Leonides in Crooked House, and probably others that aren’t coming to my mind as well. There’s the gold-digger, much-younger spouse of the moneybags, Alfred Inglethorpe, the murderer. Some other examples of this trope are a red herring or a frame-up victim instead of the true murderer. Look at Rosaleen Cloade in Taken at the Flood, or Brenda Leonides in Crooked House, or Nofret in Death Comes as the End.

There is also the married couple who believed (perhaps correctly) that at least one of them had entered the marriage without loving the other, but then find--in the shadow of a murder investigation--that they’ve both fallen truly and mutually in love with each other and will walk through fire for each other.  John and Mary Cavendish here are echoed by Jeremy and Frances Cloade in Taken at the Flood, and Stephen and Sandra Farraday in Sparkling Cyanide/Remembered Death. Christie likes this one a lot, and so do I. It’s very heartwarming.

There’s Dr. Bauerstein, the suspicious foreigner (usually Germanic or Eastern European) who is there for the sole purpose of looking sketchy and being innocent (at least, of the murder) and confusing the reader. This character may be Up To Something, but he’s never the real villain, never the actual murderer. JK Rowling echoes this in Goblet of Fire with Igor Karkaroff. 

Then there is the loyal servant, who is none too bright (Dorcas), and the “obvious dislike = love” trope, with Cynthia and Lawrence: Cynthia claims Lawrence dislikes her, and she doesn’t care that he does, when he acts like that because he loves her, and she does care very much. Dislike = love is also there with Evelyn Howard and Alfred Inglethorpe: their pretended animosity hides a passionate romantic attachment.

The Author and the Setting: Christie wrote this in a war. That same war pervades the setting, affecting the lives and livelihoods of Poirot, Hastings, Mary Cavendish, and the entire economy of Styles. Waste paper is never thrown out, which is important to solving the mystery: it helps Poirot realize Mrs. Inglethorpe had to light a fire to destroy the will she made in favor of her husband, which explains why she had a fire in her room in the heat of July. There’s a ton of Christie’s own prejudices on display here, too: the dumb servants (classism), and the racism (Jewish blood is a sign of intelligence! It’s fine to put on black-face and to refer to black people as the n-word!).

The Murder Method: Chemistry. Bromides in the medicine, precipitating strychnine. Secret chemistry. But there’s more to it than the physical murder. The coverup requires the deliberate incurring of suspicion by Alfred Inglethorpe, all the better to decisively dispel it--and the secret cahoots of him and Miss Howard, pretending to hate each other while working together to get Mrs. Inglethorpe’s money. It’s a very clever method!

The Law: The legal system plays an important part in this story: the prohibition against double jeopardy; the marital privilege so that Mary Cavendish can’t be called to testify against her husband; the attempts to cast suspicion on Lawrence by John’s attorneys.

Poirot Explains it All: There’s a classic explanation scene, with everyone gathered in the drawing-room at the end. Before getting to the actual point, Poirot has to explain all of his reasoning, and you know what, I get it. If I had been through everything in this novel, I’d want a full accounting of everyone’s odd behavior, not just the actual murderer’s. He explains that: (1) it was Mary Cavendish who was in Mrs. Inglethorpe’s room and in Cynthia’s room; (2) Mrs. Inglethorpe who had destroyed her own will, which is why she had a fire in her room in July; (3) when she twice referred to “scandal between husband and wife” on the day of her death, the first reference was to her son’s affair with Mrs. Raikes, but the second was to her own husband’s wrongdoings, evidenced in a letter to Miss Howard; (4) Mary Cavendish drugged Cynthia and Mrs. Inglethorpe so she could snoop around for a piece of paper she thought would prove John was having an affair; and finally (5) there was no need for the murderer to be in Mrs. Inglethorpe’s room that night, since the bromides in the medicine that precipitated the strychnine had already been introduced by the murderer, Alfred, who kindly and considerately wrote about the scheme in a letter to his co-conspirator Evelyn, which is now in Poirot’s hands. After which, of course, Alfred blurts out his own guilt, instead of keeping his mouth safely shut.

But then there’s a follow-up scene, where he explains even more to Hastings, about how he knew something was up when he realized Alfred wanted to be arrested, where he hid the incriminating letter, how Poirot stopped him from getting it back (by enlisting the household), Miss Howard’s role (especially in impersonating Alfred Inglethorpe), the logistics of the bromide crime, and how the murderers undid themselves by trying to incriminate John Cavendish. And finally, his own shippy thoughts, his Lawrence/Cynthia insights, and his plot to bring John and Mary together. The Hastings-explanation, after the general explanation, is meant to tie up loose ends, explain Poirot’s more personal motives, and address Hastings’s own feelings, including his romantic melancholy.

It’s a solid Christie. Not one of my favorites, but definitely enjoyable.

#agatha christie #the mysterious affair at styles #hercule poirot #arthur hastings #mystery novels #golden age #poirot the hopeless romantic #moneybags matriarch #gold-digger spouse #married couple falling in love with each other #dislike = love #suspicious non-villain foreigner

[readingraebow]

A Study in Scarlet

Part 1: Chapters 1-Part 2: Chapter 7

1. Have you ever read this book or any other Sherlock Holmes novels before? Have you ever seen any of the film or TV adaptations? I own most of the books in this series (this is ironically the only one I didn't own, haha) but this will be my first time reading one! (Though. I did read an abridged board books version when I was a kid; it was just a few of the stories but I remember exactly nothing about it.) But I really love Holmes from the adaptations I've seen! I absolutely love the BBC show and the Robert Downey Jr films. I've also seen a few episodes of that really old tv series which are also super fun!! But my absolute, all time favorite adaptation is Young Sherlock Holmes. I was OBSESSED with it when I was younger and used to watch it all the time!! .... And now I want to rewatch it, haha.

2. How does Dr. Watson come to meet and live with Sherlock Holmes? Watson runs into an old friend who asks what he's doing and Watson says that he's looking for lodgings. The friend says it's the strangest thing but Watson is the second person who has said that to him that day. So Stamford, the friend, introduces Watson to the first, Holmes. Holmes has already found the lodgings, he's just looking for a roommate and after a brief interview, Watson takes him up on the offer.

3. What did Sherlock discover about the woman who came to claim the lost ring when he followed her? So this ~woman comes to pick up the ring. She says that the ring belongs to her daughter and she came to pick it up for her. Well, Holmes followed her when she left. She hailed a cab and Holmes hailed one as well and followed her. Except when they reached the destination, her cab was empty???? The destination house belonged to none of the names she had given. So Holmes comes to the conclusion that that wasn't an old woman but a young man in a very impressive disguise.

4. What is Gregson convinced happened in the case after talking to Drebbers landlady? Drebber and his secretary were renting rooms from Mrs. Charpentier. But Drebber was less than the ideal tenant. He drank a lot and one night he tried to convince (and force) Charpentier's daughter Alice to run away with him. Well, Charpentier's son, Arthur, came to her rescue. Okay so both Drebbers and Arthur left. But only Arthur returned. So Gregson is convinced that Arthur followed Drebbers and another altercation happened between them, this time resulting in Drebbers death. He then believes Arthur dragged the body of Drebbers into the empty house. And all the other "clues" were just there to send the police on the wrong trail.

5. Who is Thomas Ferrier and how do he and Lucy get themselves into trouble with the Mormon church? So Thomas Ferrier was with this group of people who were traveling and they ended up, like, lost in the desert??? And they ran out of water and everyone but Thomas and Lucy died of thirst. So Thomas carried Lucy off in search of water. They fell asleep and were found by a group of Mormon travelers. Lucy's mom had died with the others and she wasn't related to Thomas but he basically adopted her and raised her. Well, the Mormon's saved them and took them back to their compound and gave them a home. Except. When Lucy comes of age, she's expected to marry one of the men on the compound. But she falls in love with a non-Mormon. Well, the Mormon's basically start threatening the Ferriers and trying to scare them into marrying her off to one of them. (Who already have multiple wives??? She's supposed to be an additional wife, as a reward for one of the better of men.) Well Ferriers and Lucy's non-Mormon fiance try to take her and escape the compound. And they think they've made it away and are safe. Except the Mormons end up killing Ferrier. And Jefferson, Lucy's non-Mormon fiance, learns she was married to Drebber, one of the Mormons fighting to obtain her hand. Cool.

6. How and why were Drebber and his secretary murdered? So. Lucy ended up dying within a month of her marriage, either from a broken heart from losing her father or from entering into a terrible marriage. And her once fiance, Jefferson Hope, vowed to get his revenge on the two men who had caused her death and fought to marry her: Debber and Stangerson. He followed them and tried for many years to kill them but they always evaded him. The two men eventually parted ways with the Mormon church and began to travel, with Stangerson eventually becoming Drebber's secretary. Hope following them to Europe and just as he was closing in to kill them, he lost them again. England is where he finally managed to track them down and finish the job. He got a job as a cabbie and began to follow them both, hoping to catch them alone. But they went everywhere together. Until one night, Drebber said he had some business to attend to and went off alone. Hope followed him until finally Drebber hailed his cab. Then he took him to the empty house, asked if he remembered him and when Drebber did, Hope made him choose one of the poisoned capsules and watched Drebber die. Stangerson was a little trickier since he was cautious after the death of Drebber. Hope waited outside his hotel but he never emerged so Hope climbed up to his window and woke him early one morning, telling him exactly how Drebber had died and then gave him the same choice of one of the poisoned pills. But Stangerson tried to attack Hope and, in self defense, he stabbed him in the heart. And so with that, Drebber and Stangerson had met their ends and Hope's mission of revenge is at its end. And now Hope can die too since he has a heart condition that has been threatening to kill him for years.

7. How did Sherlock figure it out? Holmes did what Gregson had neglected to do: he looked into the past of Drebber and telegraphed the Cleveland police to inquire into the circumstances connected with the marriage of Drebber. The answer told him that Drebber had applied for protection of the law from Jefferson Hope. He then also learned that Hope had also been present in Europe and had followed Drebber.

8. What did you think of this book? So. I thought this book was okay. I really did like meeting Holmes in print for the first time and I thought that was all really fascinating. But I wasn't a huge fan of the writing style?? This book was really dry and I ended up struggling with it. There were times when I would literally get lost in what I was reading and have to go back and reread. Holmes isn't your quirky detective like Poirot. He's very methodical and, well, dry. So reading his super long descriptions of deductions was honestly kind of a chore?

  Reading Journal

So I read this book in the month we were supposed to read it. (April.....? I want to say....? How does time work again????) And I’m just now getting around to actually posting this. Whoops. So since it’s been a hot minute since I read it, hopefully all the answers are actually correct. I did flip through and try to find the answers but sometimes also struggled a little because details. (And I just have a lot going on right now so BRAIN FOG EXTREME, haha.)

Well, anyway. Overall, I did enjoy this. I liked meeting Holmes and Watson in the books for the first time and this was a really fun case. But I also think I do prefer the screen adaptations more than the books, at this point. The writing style in these is rather dry and I struggled a little with staying focused.

Plus. WHAT IS THAT GIANT LONG TANGENT ABOUT MORMONS?!? I literally thought I was reading the wrong book for a second. I don’t think that entire section was necessary at all? It felt like all of that couldn’t been shortened to, like, a page??? Not, like, 30??? That honestly felt like a Hugo tangent. And it definitely diminished my enjoyment of this book.

So. Overall it was a ~fairly enjoyable reading experience? I’ll definitely be reading more of the books. But I just feel like this story wasn’t exactly what I was expecting? That wasn’t necessarily bad. I just wish that tangent hadn’t been there....? Because other than that, the case was good and interesting!

Anyway. This was a lot of fun! I can’t wait to read the next book on our list!

#trcbooks #color: a study in scarlet #the color challenge

[thesffcorner]

Truly Devious

Truly Devious is the first book in a YA mystery/thriller series written by Maureen Johnson. It follows Steve, a high school junior, who gets accepted to Ellingham Academy, a free private high school founded by Mr Ellingham: a newspaper and steel magnate, who viewed learning as a form of play. She gets admitted to the school because of her peculiar interest in true crime and investigations, specifically because she wants to solve the famous Ellingham mystery: who kidnapped and killed his family. This book got rave reviews; people said it was atmospheric, creepy, clever and I went into it with high expectations, but also a lot of skepticism, mostly because me and YA thrillers don’t tend to always agree.

I can happily say that this book delivers on most of the hype. It’s well written, both the case in the past and the case in the present are interesting, and the characters are well developed. However, I can’t fully recommend it, or even really explain how I feel about it because of the ending, or rather the lack thereof. I don’t mean this is an open ending, I mean there isn’t one. This is a part one to the mystery, and neither the past nor the present case are solved. I imagine we will get the answer in the sequel, but I am apprehensive, because I saw on Goodreads that there will be a third book. I just don’t see how this mystery can be stretched out into even just 2 books, let alone more; as such I might come off as a bit more negative than I probably intended, because half of a mystery is the ending, and without that how can you really be satisfied. Before we talk about that, let’s talk about the setting. The plot is set in Ellingham Academy, a private boarding school in Vermont. It was founded in the 30’s by Albert Ellingham, an incredibly wealthy man, who owns American steel, a newspaper and a production studio. He’s a true tycoon, a man clearly inspired by the likes of Howard Hughes, Joseph Pulitzer and Warren Buffet, self-made millionaires, hard core capitalists and people who as his friend Detective Marsh puts it “think they are invincible”. I like the idea of the Academy, this Montessori type establishment where learning is play, and the curriculum is very specifically tailored to the student’s interests. However, as always, I don’t see why it has to be a special high school, and can’t just be a private college or conservatory, and have the characters be 17-18, instead of 15-16. Ellingham Academy is already described as an old, classic style small, private, liberal arts college, down to being set in the middle of nowhere, on a hill, with a mostly inaccessible road and surrounded by woods. This makes for a possibly interesting atmosphere; this old isolated house, full of mystery and haunted by the past, surrounded by nature, full of an secret passages, tunnels, catacombs, etc. It should have made for an excellent backdrop to this murder mystery, but unfortunately I feel the setting just wasn’t fully utilized. Johnson does spend a great deal of time and effort into meticulously describing the Academy, the Minerva house and the grounds, but her descriptions are very sterile. There’s no sense of atmosphere or tension; a lot of the time it’s just paragraphs explaining what is on what wall, or what is what color and long tangents about the Ellinghams. This is also why I kind of shrug in confusion when I hear people say this book is creepy; nothing that happens and nothing that is said on the page is creepy; it lack proper atmosphere. If you want a book set in a small liberal arts mansion, surrounded by woods, that’s even set in Vermont, try If We Were Villains; even the Charlotte Holmes series did a better job with the setting and atmosphere. The plot really is where this book excels. It’s clear to me that Maureen Johnson is a fan of mystery novels and whodunnits; there are tons of references to Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and even noir style detective books. The Ellingham mystery is even reminiscent of the case in Murder on the Orient Express; both set during the Prohibition, and both revolving around a cast of characters implicated in the disappearance and murder of a rich, self-made millionaire’s family. There’s talk of politics of the time, a prominent clash between Mr. Ellingham and the anarchists, and the person who confessed to the crime has clearly not committed it. The way the investigation is lead by Steve too was very old school; she makes deductions based on clues and reasoning that all make sense and we can also pick up on as readers, there are clues in the interview transcripts she reads, and in general the case itself was interesting to keep me invested. The main issue with the plot was actually how the present day mystery and the past mystery intersected, which wasn’t helped by the pacing. It takes a long time before the present day story catches up to the past, and especially at the start, I really didn’t care about Ellingham and his plight, because we quickly find out that his wife and daughter are dead, meaning he never found them. So it was just a slow trudge through the motions he took on the day, and then at one point we just top cutting back to the past, because we have to focus on the present day mystery. We only come back to Ellingham in the very, very last chapter. It’s not well balanced, and it doesn’t feel like the present day story and the past are connected at all, other than Steve being interested in solving both. The present day story is interesting, but even still, I’m not sure what Hayes filming his project had to do with the Ellinghams, other than tangentially being related because they are filming a short about the Ellingham mystery. There is a thematic connection, linking to Steve’s assignment about putting a human face on mystery (which was something that really warmed me to the dean of students as a character), but other than that, even the way Steve figures out what happened, has nothing to do with the past mystery. Speaking of Hayes, this book’s other strong suit are the characters. There are plenty of them so I won’t go over all of them, but they are all developed, and interesting enough to hold my attention. Ellingham and his posse were straight out of an Agatha Christie novel; I honestly wish that the book had maybe split it’s time more evenly, focusing on a core character in the past as well as the present, so I could get more easily invested. From the present day, we have a few of the larger parts: Elle, Janelle, Nathan, Hayes and David. Elle was fine; she was very much the type of person you would find in a private boarding school, and I enjoyed how open she was about her personality, body and sex life. It’s always nice to see female characters who are a bit off and are actually in tune with their confidence and body. Janelle was also fine; I liked she was openly out, gets a girlfriend pretty quickly, and though there’s a little jealousy on Steve’s part, they very quickly move past it, and have a healthy, supportive friendship. I really liked their little trio of Janelle, Nate and Steve. Hayes was the typical Youtube star, or at least the general stereotype of someone who is attractive and charming and uses other people to do the actual difficult work for him. I liked that even though he wasn’t the nicest person, the book didn’t demonize him, and acknowledged that he did indeed have talent and could do at least some of the things he claimed he could. Nate was a surprise to me, because I expected the book to take a different direction with him (which it still might in the sequel, but I’m really hoping it won’t). He’s a writer, so he’s mostly there to discuss how difficult and annoying, while at the same time exhilarating writing can be, and I really enjoyed his banter with the other characters. David was interesting; he was kind of abrasive and an asshole, though I almost think he wasn’t enough of an asshole to Steve after what she does to him, and her horrible, non-apology she gives him. The ending caught me off guard, though in hindsight it makes a lot of sense, so I give this book points for this. I won’t spoil it, but this book does have a romance, and I surprisingly didn’t mind it. I expected someone different to be the love interest, and I was pleasantly surprised at how it actually was. Even when the romance starts, the book doesn’t spend too much time using him as a red herring, which I appreciated; I don’t know if this is just a YA thing, or a genre thing left over from noir stories, but why is the love interest always a suspect, but never actually the perpetrator? Finally Steve, who was the best developed and most complete character. I liked that she had a set personality, while there still being room for her to grow. Even though she’s awkward, and shy, she was still funny, still had good banter with the boys and the rest of the school, and was confident and smart enough to solve the present day mystery. I liked her relationship with Larry, I liked her relationship with the other characters, and enjoyed watching her grow, even if I didn’t always agree with her decisions, and thought what she does to David was horrible (and her being angry at him on the bus for helping, instead of at her parents who are the real reason she had to even be in the situation in the first place, was dumb and never addressed). All in all, a decent start to a possibly interesting mystery, depending on the answers we get in the sequel. Not bad, but as an incomplete story, I can’t in good faith recommend it, or rate it any higher, though I still think that if you like classic style mysteries and detectives, you will probably enjoy it.

#truly devious #truly devious review #moni talks #book review

[oneweekobsession]

books books books

of late i have been buying books like they are going out of fashion. what started this, i think, was going on holiday, which coincided with getting a new kindle fire because i wanted a cheap tablet on which i could watch amazon prime video. but what has happened is that i have watched pretty much no amazon prime video and have instead read lots and lots of things instead.

so with the kindle fire came a trial subscription to kindle unlimited, and i was like, ok this is good ok no wait no wait these books look a bit shit i'm gonna cancel this and then i canceled it and then only then did i discover that there's a ton of jane rule novels on there. and then i thought about uncancelling but my trial still had a month to run so i decided to read as many as i could during that period.

ok so jane rule. a long time ago i read desert of the heart and tbqh i wasn't that blown away by it. i'm not good with books that come with hype, really. so i didn't have huge expectations when i started with this is not for you (1970) but it actually blew me away. it's full on lesbian angst: it's full of rich people and the narrator's rather pious self-denial does get a bit irritating, but crikey, i'd pigeon-holed jane rule as a kind of pulpy author and this was not pulpy at all. next i read against the season (1971) and the young in one anothers arms (1977) and memory board (1987). ok so these are all really interesting books about queer found families but what i really love about them is the fact that a significant number of the lesbians in these novels are 60+. I don't think i've ever read much about older lesbians, and what's so interesting about this is how it puts those older lesbians in dialogue, implicitly or explicitly, with younger queer folk. for me the young in one another's arms was probably the weakest of these books; it's the one that features the most trauma (there's more death and grieving than the other books); perhaps, perhaps, that's done for a sort of realism (life is shit, folks) but i felt much of it didn't quite come with enough emotional truth. there's also a really convenient death at the end which felt a bit too trite, too easy. there was a lot i loved about against the season; there's a whole 'we've found an historical diary' plot, but what was really interesting was that the novel resisted the standard 'we will read the diary and discover the secrets' plot. there's also some well angsty younger lesbians, and even the m/f couple ping as very bi. but of all the books, memory board was the most impressive. i've never read anything like it: twins david and diana stop speaking because david's wife is upset that diana's a lesbian. after david's wife dies, he gets back in touch with his sister, who's living with her partner of 40-odd years; her partner is suffering from senile dementia. this could be the most miserable of all books, but it has wonderful wonderful heart; there's real tragedy here (and it's set in the 80s, so there's a subplot where the aids crisis lurks menacingly) but there's also real spirit; and this time, the found family is a family that has been rediscovered. seriously, this is a good book.

ok, so also i was on my holidays and wanted some nice golden-age crime novels to read. and somehow i ended up on gladys mitchell, who i had never heard of before and yet who is someone who wrote an actual fuckton of novels, including 66 with her detective lady mrs bradley. so i downloaded speedy death (1929) and when last i died (1941). well, it all started brightly, because speedy death begins with a sniff of a lesbian relationship (shades of josephine tey's to love and be wise) but that doesn't really go anywhere. it's intriguing enough because for the last half of the novel you think there must be a twist, and yet the twist is that there is no twist. and so basically mrs bradley is not a poirot or miss marple, because poirot and miss marple do not go round meting out justice themselves. they are not, as far as i can remember, advocates of eugenics. so yeah, there's some potentially interesting storytelling but i'm done with this; there's a reason gladys mitchell's been long forgotten, and it's because these books are, at least at times, pretty hateful.

so i also read sarah-jane stratford's radio girls (2016). this is a fictionalization of the bbc in the 1920s, focusing on the talks department run by hilda matheson. there's a really interesting story to be told here, but this wasn't it. the book sketches in some of the atmosphere of the place in some interesting ways, but it invents a main character who is a complete mary sue. it's not good. also for a novel published in 2016 to have certain gay characters and for the most part only to refer to that in nudge nudge wink wink subtext is pretty cowardly; there is legitimately something interesting to be done with the relationship between matheson and vita sackville west but this, this was not interesting.

what was amazing, though depressing as all hell, is nicole dennis-benn's here comes the sun (2016). it's the story of three generations of women in jamaica: one of them's gay; there's a lot of internalised homophobia; there's a lot of child neglect and cruelty; there's betrayal; there's sex work; there are precarious existences. it's fucking bleak. but it's very well written. nicole dennis-benn is definitely one to watch.

and that, i think, brings us to the rabbit hole i've currently fallen down.

so, winifred holtby is one of my all time faves, for novels that are 1920s-30s middle-brow female focused with a good guarantee of something lowkey sapphic. but i've always been a bit cautious of reading her work; she only wrote a handful of novels, and i didn't want to read it all because then i'd have nothing more to discover.

well.

so i was going on my hols, and in amongst the jane rule and the gladys mitchell i downloaded the land of green ginger (1927). which is great, but largely stressful, because it's about a girl getting swept up in the romance of the war, and marrying her soldier, and then life becoming, relentlessly, miserable. it's also weirdly bookended by south african sections which i didn't quite get. that is, i wasn’t sure how to take them: was this some kind of unreflective colonialism?

and then, well, ok, so then i fell in a big hole of reading everything i could about holtby's life, and now things make sense.

(and now thinking about it the whole war-bride thing and how that might relate to vera brittain, and the whole illness thing, and the whole south africa thing, and how that maps on to her very progressive, anti-imperial politics and activism: now, now, i see that there's a whole damn thesis to be written on this novel.)

so, i've been dipping into marion shaw's biography the clear stream: a life of winifred holtby (1999). and ok, i discovered i'm not going ot run out of holtby things to read, because she was a prolific journalist, and because there are bits and pieces that are going to be hard to track down, so i don't need to go too slow on the things that are easy to get hold of.

before getting too much into the biography i wanted to read the primary documents, as far as i could. and so i started off with holtby's letters to a friend (1937), letters mostly written into the 1920s to jean mcwilliam, who she had met during the war and who then moved to south africa. the letters start out in ways that are sweet and a little bit flirtatious; they use the names celia and rosalind for each other, and winifred describes jean as 'mac o'my heart'. but winifred's now at oxford (where she is meeting vera brittain), and the post to south africa is so slow that it becomes a correspondence without a huge amount of dialogue; they do reply to what each other says, but it's not a quick exchange, and that changes the character of their relationship. Winifred's letters are so full of energy and drive; she is always busy, she is always generous, she is someone who believes fairness and equality are fundamental rights, she is committed, and she is optimistic. there's a remarkable insight into the founding of the league of nations, and the league's early meetings, which winifred and vera go to see. she confides to jean/rosalind, just a bit, what vera means to her. the letters cover the period where vera decides that she's going to get married; we see winifred deciding to make her own significant life choice (to go to south africa) and then her losing her temper at jean/rosalind in such a way that it seems plain that the real target of her anger is vera. the book doesn't contain many letters after winifred returns from south africa, which makes it look like her friendship with jean became more distant, but from other sources it seems they were friends to the end. those other sources too have hinted that there was, at times, a heavy editorial hand at work in some of the letters (e.g. changing dates and things); i would give quite a lot, actually, to get a properly, newly edited collection of these letters to see what we're really dealing with.

so i also read vera brittain's testament of friendship (1940), but i was still hankering after the primary sources. you can see brittain, for example, reworking holtby's essay 'mother knows best' (reproduced in testament of a generation: the journalism of vera brittain and winifred holtby (1985)) in her account of her youth; because of that, i wanted very much to know what else she was working from. so far i've restrained from spending sixty quid on the selected letters of holtby and brittain, but what was cheaper and therefore overcame my restraint was vera brittain's diary of the thirties, 1932-1939 (1986).

oh my god vera. well vera. while winifred is kind and generous and open hearted and selfless, vera is not. vera - particularly before she publishes testament of youth in 1933, is peevish and jealous and demanding and bitchy and self-centred. reading this makes you say 'oh my god vera' and 'what a bitch' on quite a few occasions, let me tell you. like, it's compelling stuff to read, but god, vera was often not a nice person. this is what she has to say about george vi and his wife (i.e. the lady who would later become the queen mum) when edward viii had just abdicated:

i cannot believe that that stiff, shy, slow-brained man & his snobbish, limited little duchess will do anything to increase the prestige of the monarchy

elsewhere, there's a whole amazing sequence where, before she's really written anything of note herself she becomes infatuated with phyllis bentley, who was at that time a sudden, overnight, best seller. out of no-where vera becomes obsessed with being her best friend; phyllis and winifred (who was p's friend first) are like 'wtf?' it starts out self-interested: vera wants p. to come to stay so she can have the cache of hosting parties and doing introductions for such a hot literary property. p, meanwhile, is flattered, because vera looks like she's living this amazing london life. it's super emotional, it's super angsty; and there's this whole bit where, while vera's staying at p's,

we talked about the queer way that we'd 'fallen in love' with each other

well, the next day, v tells p that she thinks she's pregnant, thus reasserting her heteronormativity, and the two of them sort of quarrel, v goes back to london, is ill, sends p fevered notes which upset p....seriously, it's full on angst, but you can see from it how - if she did something similar with winifred, how winifred might have fallen for her and then taken self-protective measures which recast passion and longing as friendship (there's a great bit on how w writes about passion becoming friendship in testament of friendship; v uses it to think about w's relationship with a man, but seriously, it looks completely applicable, even more so, for her relationship with v). 

i’m being a bit mean to vera here. there are bits of the diaries that are extraordinarily powerful: there’s a journey that she and her husband make to nazi germany, and it’s completely vivid and absolutely terrifying. and her account of the summer of 1935 –when her father kills himself, and then a month or so later Winifred dies- is incredibly tragic. so I shouldn’t be too mean to vera; we all have our blindspots and vanities. and this diary finishes in august 1939, and I’m looking forward to start on the next volume, because I want to see with what vividness she can take us through the war.

ok, that’s it, i’m done. still on the tbr pile:

a load more about holtby and brittain

a biography of josephine tey and a bunch of her novels

more jane rule

and a bunch more stuff because seriously i went on a book buying binge and it wasn’t pretty.

#books books books #this is very much a tl;dr #the short version is: jane rule is amazing! #winifred holtby is amazing! #vera brittain makes me mad! #nicole dennis-benn is great! #gladys mitchell is best fucking avoided

[spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub]

Reading Agatha Christie: The Mysterious Mr. Quin

I had a tendency to skip over the short story collections when I was kid, especially ones that didn’t have anything to do with Hercule Poirot.  I didn’t have a whole lot of knowledge about this collection -- the same way I had a background with Poirot, Miss Marple, or even Tommy and Tuppence.  But this one pleasantly surprised me.  

The thing about this one is that it reads differently than all the books (and short stories) I’ve read previously.  Christie rarely does anything related to supernatural, but I’d say that there is a fantastical nature to all of these stories.  More than the mysteries themselves, there’s a darker tone, and often times a melancholy spirit that hangs over the stories.  But more so -- there’s often times mentions of ghosts and ghost stories, fantastical tales that go hand in hand with the mysteries.  Christie never uses the supernatural as a device to solve a murder -- but it’s in the backdrop of all of the stories in a way that’s not in any of her regular novels.  I’d be interested to see if this style shows up in any of her later writings, and any of her writings that don’t involve Mr. Quin.  

Most mysteriously is Mr. Quin himself -- who is a nod to the Harlequin.  The Harlequin was originally the fool or the clown, but then updated to be the romantic hero in an old school European tradition.  This Mr. Quin isn’t the main character of any of these stories, and instead, he shows up just when the real main character - Mr. Swatterthwaite needs him the most -- to help joggle those little grey cells into coming up with the correct answer as to who the murder (or culprit of the crime) is.  And just like that -- he disappears.  He is a most peculiar character - intentionally drawn so.  

I think what I found so fascinating in this one is Mr. Swatterthwaite’s preoccupation with him.  Mr. Swatterthwaite is the narrator of each of the stories.  He’s an older, rather well off, begrudging socialite, who seems to rather get himself caught up in a lot of drama but never is the focus of it himself.  And he’s always wishing Mr. Quin would show up -- because he’s always more interested in Mr. Quin and his elusiveness more than any of the drama going on around him.  It’s a dynamic that’s similar to Hastings and Poirot, but with more whimsy.  And Mr. Quin is never really fleshed out -- and acts more like a Manic Pixie Dream Detective than anything.  Still, Mr. Swatterthwaite’s infatuation with him is by far the most interesting aspect of these stories.  

As for the stories themselves, I think they’re a little uneven.  Some of them are great and gripping! Others are kind of ‘meh’ and pedestrian.  I think the other characters are of standard Christie stock, and I don’t think there’s any outcome that’s truly shocking or can’t be figured out by someone who’s used to her style of writing.  

Still, I’d recommend the collection as it offers a uniqueness among Christie’s style.  

#agatha christie #the mysterious mr. quin #so reads agatha christie

[poirott]

hey there any idea where to watch all of the murder on the orient express deleted scenes? :)

Hey there, anon! Thank you for your ask. There are 11 deleted scenes on the Murder on the Orient Express (2017) dvd. Some have been uploaded online via media outlets and some by fans. I’m including links to the uploads, and my own screencaps of the rest of the scenes:

- Hotel Check-in - Poirot arrives at the Tokatlian hotel in Istanbul. He’s telegrammed specific orders about his room reservation (10 bath towels, 10 bottles of mineral water, etc). The scene introduces his OCD. I did a gif set of it.

- Poirot Bedtime Rituals - We see Poirot’s slimming exercises routine and moustache grooming. He’s wearing a corset. Here’s a gif set. The only look we have at Poirot’s famous moustache kit. Ken Branagh talks about the kit here.

- Pierre Michel (the conductor) interview - The only suspect interrogation scene they cut. It’s a shame because Marwan Kenzari’s performance is touching, and the location they went with for the interview is visually interesting.

- Departure - A great shot of the Orient Express leaving the station. We see all the characters inside the traincars as they speed past the camera. Poirot is at the very end in the last car, looking pleased. This isn’t a CGI scene, it was shot in camera.

- The following tweet from a fan has a video of three deleted scenes:

1) The Mr Ratchett/Poirot sequence from the Arasta Bazaar/Alternate Opening scene, an alternate - and much longer - intro scene of several characters before they get to board the train. The widowed Mrs Hubbard is chatting up a bunch of local children, Pilar Estravados the missionary is talking to a jewelry seller, Miss Debenham is taking pictures on her camera and spots the Count and Countess Andrenyi.

In the movie we only see Ratchett and the Count and Countess Andrenyi at the cafe, but no Poirot, who got cut out. In the full deleted scene he’s got a bigger role, he sees the Count fighting the paps and is about to intervene (rising from his chair), when the Countess arrives and the fighting stops. Poirot sits down again. He’s eating a lot of food, and getting excited over famous desert, and like the clip in the tweet shows, Mr Ratchett is also ordering him a bottle of champaigne, but Poirot asks for a cup of hot chocolate instead, and toasts Mr Ratchett in thanks. Chefs making the chocolate for Poirot and closeups of Godiva chocolate do not appear in either the deleted scene or the theatrical cut. I giffed the Godiva sequence here. 

2) Dreamscape - The full “Poirot vision”-like scene in b&w in which we get inside Poirot’s mind. It’s a sort of re-cap of the different clues Poirot’s gathered so far. He’s looking at all the suspects one by one, and there’s a cool group shot of them facing him. More on this scene below.

3) bits of the Poirot Bedtime Rituals scene I’ve already mentioned.

That’s all the scenes I’ve managed to find online, there might be more out there, the studio took down several clips. The ones left from the dvd are:

- Alternate Opening - B&w scene of Colonel Armstrong alone in a gloomy, darkened living room. He’s watching a projector clip of himself, his wife and daughter at play when they were all happy and carefree. Little Daisy is playing with her teddybear and dolly.

- Newsreel (Extended) - B&w reel of news footage and newspaper clippings about the Armstrong kidnapping case, “the story that shocked the world”. It serves as background info for the audience. Shots of the crime scene, the funeral, mother screaming on the floor, Daisy’s teddybear guarding a fresh grave.

- Breakfast - The extra footage that was cut from the Wailing Wall scene. After Poirot exposes the Chief Inspector, the Inspector wants to attack him from behind but Poirot intercepts with his cane without looking back. He doesn’t see the breakfast boy with the eggs who’s followed him to the Wall, and he swings his cane, hitting theeggs by accident. The tops of the eggs the boy is holding out to him, are cut off. Next shot is of Poirot finally eating breakfast, he’s seated by the Wall, with the boy and a waiter standing beside him.

- Train Montage - A short clip of Orient Express staff/waiters setting the tables, bringing in crates of food, arranging champaigne bottles, etc. Just a few extra shots that didn’t make it into the film.

- Luggage - Bouc and Michel the conductor going through some of the passengers’ luggage. Mostly closeups of the contents of their suitcases, with quick shots of Estravados the missionary, Schmidt the maid, Marquez the salesman and Hardmanthe professor, and one extra line from Estravados.

There are about 30 mins of other deleted footage that never landed on the dvd, including two major action scenes - Poirot chasing MacQueen the assistant out in the blizzard, shooting at MacQueen in warning, then saving him from drowning when the man falls into a river, and Poirot defending himself from Dr Arbuthnot, almost falling off the train and using his wits to get back inside.

Changes from the original script to the theatrical cut: The original denouement scene happened in the dining car like in the book (and the 1974 movie), not outside, though I’m not sure if they ever filmed the first version. There are some huge differences between the original script and the film. A lot of the clue-explaining, some of the exposition, character-establishing and other character moments, extra lines from interrogation scenes, chunks of dialog, etc, were cut. Settings and certain lines of dialogue were changed. More canon quotes were added into the movie, such as Poirot’s famous “My name is Hercule Poirot and I’m probably the greatest detective in the world” line from The Mystery of the Blue Train. Miss Debeham and Dr Arbuthnot kissed twice in the original script! No kisses in the movie. Pilar Estravados was Greta Ohlsson, like in the book (Estravados’ name comes from Hercule Poirot’s Christmas).  Poirot remembers his canon “love interest“ Vera Rossakoff. She only gets a mention but is kind of instrumental to him solving the case. Vera was changed into “Katherine” in the movie, a new character, someone from Poirot’s past. Was it because Vera might appear in future movies?

Most of the characters get a bit more screentime in the original script. Poirot has a HUGE, HUGE “getting-inside-the-detective’s-head” scene where he sees all the suspects frozen like ice, or like in a photograph, and he can walk through the photograph and observe each suspect, each frozen facial expression, and analyze what everyone told him in interviews. He’s looking at all the clues again in his mind, brushing away those that aren’t relevant. For the audience, this would have been a bigger and more helpful re-cap of the mystery compared to “Dreamscape” above. It would have been an amazing showstopper scene.

I wish they could have kept some of these scenes as one of the biggest criticisms about the movie was that the audience couldn’t really follow the clues and play “detective”, Poirot did all the explaining himself - and quickly - and didn’t give them enough of a chance to solve the mystery on their own. The screenwriter originally had POIROT ANALYZE ALL THE CLUES in great detail. All the clues from the book are present. Poirot’s all about the clues and observation. He brainstorms which suspect could be guilty, which pairs of suspects could have killed Ratchett together. He considers them all in his mind, all the variations and possibilities, and the audience can see his thoughts. He’s moving from one suspect to the next, in a “refresh my memory” sort of scene for the viewers.

He’s not “omnipotent” nor “guessing” like some critics have complained. He tells you how he came by the conclusions. He does it in the movie but originally he talked a lot, lot more, and the scenes were trimmed for time constraints. Some of the details regarding the clues were the first to go. I love the movie dearly and always will but there’s an even greater potential in the original script, I think. Hopefully we see more deleted footage on future dvd sets. :)

Thanks again for your ask! If anyone would like me to gif any of the deleted scenes, please let me know! :)

#Anonymous #replies #murder on the orient express #agatha christie #hercule poirot #poirot

[anongoingsoliloquy]

Hey babes! It’s the first day of Spring so you know what that means…it’s time for a Spring Reading Recommendations List! For me, springtime is when I want to read all the classics. There’s just something about classic novels that just demands to be read in the spring, I’m not exactly sure why, but it does! So, this list will be made up of a few classics, but I’ve thrown in some historical fiction, some whodunits, fantasy, and contemporaries for good measure. Alright, let’s get started!

1.       Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

The first of Jane Austen’s novel to be published, Northanger Abbey is a lighthearted novel that follows our heroine, Catherine Morland. In the novel, Catherine is taken to Bath for the first time, and while there she meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor, who invite her to stay at their family home, Northanger Abbey. While there Catherine imagines that a terrible murder has taken place, which leads her to trouble. This novel is really about a young girl’s imagination and the power of reading! It’s really short so it’s perfect to read on a lazy spring day!

2.       Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

I put this book on my winter reading list too, but it’s also going on this one because it’s the best book and perfect for all year ‘round! Great Expectations is a chunky book, but don’t let its size scare you away! it is fantastic! It is truly a story about life. It begins when our main character, Pip, is six years old, when he first meets ‘the convict’. The novel follows Pip throughout his life, from meeting the eccentric Miss Havisham, falling in love with the indifferent and cold Estella, and coming into money and great expectations. We see the rise and fall of Pip as a person, ending the novel around the time that Pip is thirty. I laughed, cried and simply fell in love with the characters of this novel!

3.       Courtship and Curses by Marissa Doyle 

Courtship and Curses is a prequel to the duology, The Bewitching Season and The Betraying Season. All three novels are prefect to read in the spring, as they are fashioned after the style of Jane Austen. In Courtship and Curses, our main character, Sophie,(who is also a witch!) has a lame leg and walks with a cane, which leads her to think that she will never find a husband during her first season out in society. Then in walks the charming Lord Woodbridge who seems to love Sophie for exactly who and how she is. And let me tell you, Lord Woodbridge is very much like Mr. Darcy. Every word that comes out of his mouth makes me swoon!

 4. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Hamlet is, in my humble opinion, the ultimate classic! It has everything, ghosts, murder, psychotic breaks, romance, incest, adventure, existential crises and even pirates! It is such a good story, and please, please if you have to read it for school, do not write it off as boring or too hard! if you go into it with a closed mind, you won’t enjoy it. So please just let yourself go in this world, and I’m sure you’ll like it! I always read Hamlet in the spring, specifically in May. I read it for the first time in May and now every May, like clockwork, I have to read it!

5.       Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie

In Taken at the Flood, Detective Hercule Poirot must solve the mystery of a man, who is thought to be dead but maybe isn’t, who’s family now believes is coming back to reclaim his fortune. This is one of Poirot’s most puzzling cases which includes three dead bodies, blackmail and secret identities! I don’t’ want to say anymore because every little detail could be a spoiler for a murder mystery!  

6.       Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

The ultimate chunky book! Set during the backdrop of the June Rebellion, this story is about one man’s journey to freedom. Biblical allusions, action, adventure and barricade boys. And a bomb musical to go along with it! Don’t let the size of this book turn you away. It is worth the effort!

7.       A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

A Room with a View follows our main character, Lucy, who has her world turned upside down when she meets a boy in Italy who shows her that there are other ways of living, despite what her rigid English upbringing has taught her. Torn between the bright and lively world of Italy and the life she’s always known in Edwardian England, Lucy must learn to follow her heart…even if it leads to scandal.

8.       The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

When Megan Chase’s little brother is stolen by the fey, she, along with her best friend and a fairy prince, must travel through the Nevernever to get him back. Along the way, Megan learns that she is the daughter of the King of the Spring Court. Megan must decide which life to claim, the one she has always known in the human world, or the life as one of the fey.  

9.       Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingles

This is the first novel in the Little House series, based on the journals of Laura Ingles. Little House in the Big Woods is a cozy and quaint novel about pioneer living through the eyes of a child.  

10.   A Night in with Audrey Hepburn by Lucy Holliday

One of the only contemporary novels I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, A Night in with Audrey Hepburn is my dream! One night while staying in feeling sorry for herself, our main character, Libby, comes face to face with the ghost(?) of Audrey Hepburn. During their nights in, Audrey teaches Libby how to be comfortable in her own skin…while also getting up to a few antics! This book really spoke to me; Audrey Hepburn is my idol in every way and I would be thrilled to have her haunt my couch and bestow her wisdom unto me!

And that’s it! I hope you give these books a try because they are really good! Let me know if you do end up reading them or if you’ve already read them. I would love to chat about them with you!

#spring reads #spring recommendations #reading recommendations #classics #jane austen #charles dickens #marissa doyle #shakespeare #agatha christie #victor hugo #audrey hepburn #courtship and curses #Northanger Abbey #Great Expectations #Les Miserables #les mis #a room with a view

[guardmesherlock-rowan]

Hey I really love your blog! If you're up for the challenge, could you write about how the GMS guys (including George) would react would to MC dying?

Making the boys suffer?  Who me? (warning James’s gets a little… weird.  So I put his at the end of the list if you want to avoid it.)

There had been no way of knowing.  She had been complaining to her director about a persistent headache, bordering on a migraine, but with some aspirin waiting in her dressing room they were given a small lunch break so she could ‘hopefully compose’ herself.  They found her shortly after, collapse on the floor of her dressing room.  A brain aneurysm as the culprit.  No mystery, no shadowy figure, but in a moment she was gone. 

Sherlock Holmes

John would check in on him, but he would be in the same place as the night before.  The same spot, barely moving, except when prodded by John to shower, or when Mikah would demand him to eat.  Even then it was just the minimal amount required to live.  His cheeks were sunken, and the sleepless nights were starting to show, both in the bags under his eyes, and the moments he would address MC as if she was still sitting in the room with him.  

The funeral came and went.  If he heard any news or information about it from John or Mikah as they practically yelled it at him, he never responded.  

It had been nearing a month before the sounds of crashes could be heard in the study late at night.  Mikah and John both rushing inside to see what was going on.  Sherlock and broken nearly everything he owned, throwing it everywhere.  Purposefully missing all the things that were ‘hers’.  “IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!” He yelled over and over in frustration.  

“Sherlock! Sherlock!”  John restrained him as Mikah called for assistance.  It was only once Mycroft and George where both present that they were able to calm Sherlock down enough to get him to answer the question, “what are you doing?”

“I’m a fool, a moron, an idiot, I am a pathetic bloody useless cretin.  How can I call myself the greatest detective and boost about being able to notice and realize what was going on?  How could I let her die?”

“You didn’t let her die Sherlock, no one could’ve prevented…”  George would pat his shoulder, trying to comfort him.  

“I don’t believe that for an instant George.  I failed her, and now I have lost the only woman I’ll ever-”  Sherlock would stand pulling away, and keeping his back to them, “I’m going to bed.  Don’t disturb me.”  

The door would click softly into place, leaving the four to stand in the study staring after him, the silence broken when Mycroft turned to them nodding.  “I’ll watch over him for the next few hours.  George you better get comfortable on the sofa as you’re taking the next watch.”

John Watson

He didn’t believe it.  He couldn’t believe it.  He kept waiting for Sherlock to tell him how he faked her death or why.  When that didn’t come he started double checking, believing that her death was actually murder disguised as natural causes.  He couldn’t just accept that she was gone.  The hospital told him to take time to grieve.  

When he finally accepted what people were telling him he told Sherlock he was going out of town.  By that he went to MC’s parent’s place and helped them clean and take care of things.  He was there for the funeral, sitting along side her parents, unable to look away.  It was only during the trip back to London that he started crying.  It was a while before he stopped but after he did, it was as if he was back to John Watson.  To anyone who didn’t know him personally that is.  

To those who knew him could see how little he engaged people, he was going through the motions.  Rarely getting animated except when Mikah suggested he pack up MC’s stuff from the room he shared with her, then he got angry. 

Sherlock complained about how useless John was as an assistant now, and refused to take him on any cases until he could clear his head.  But as he spent most of his free time staring at a picture of a woman standing at a window in a book they weren’t sure when that would happen. 

Mycroft Holmes

On the outside he seems calm and collected, he doesn’t really ask many questions.  He tells MC’s parents that he will take care of the funeral.  He is very stoic throughout all of it, to the point that after the funeral and after the wake some people confront him.  George and John especially.  Wanting to know why Mycroft wasn’t more emotional, didn’t he really love her?  Sherlock would actually step up and defend his brother, explaining that everyone grieves in their own way.  Including Mycroft Holmes.

When he was finally alone Mycroft would go and sit in her room for a little bit.  He had a chair placed in there so he wouldn’t disturb anything of hers.  Eventually he would pack everything up, he would tell himself.  Though there was no real timeline in his mind for when that would be.  John and George would apologize, coming back with some pastries.  But Mycroft wouldn’t let them inside, telling them that he didn’t have much of a sweet tooth at the moment.  He appreciated them thinking of him, but he would rather be alone with his thoughts.  

Jack Stillman

He told everyone that it didn’t bother him.  He didn’t go to the funeral.  He didn’t talk to anyone about it.  This didn’t sit well with the other guys in Guard Me Sherlock.  A few of them did try to approach him on separate occasions, demanding to know if he ever loved her, only to get a cocky grin, and a few snide words.  Egging them on into a fight.  

His work didn’t falter for ‘M’, but his extra curricular activities at night increased.  The victims of the Ripper slowly getting younger and taking on more and more of an appearance closer to that of MC.  Till one of the victims lived, or better put, she was spared.  He had loomed over her, a knife ready when he struck her with an open hand instead, hissing at her to ‘live’.  The killing stopped for a while before it picked back up with the original type of victim.  

At one point James did confront him about the killing, Sebastian had to step in when Jack stepped forward trying to make it physical.  In the fight a little hair clip fell out of his pocket.  James recognized it immediately and turned to ask Jack why he had it, but ignoring Sebastian, Jack was charging at James demanding its return.  

Sebastian Moran

More cats.  More and more cats.  When did he bring them home?  Jack and James had no idea.  But he had at least 5 new cats that they could count.  Sebastian never talked to anyone about it, he was there to pat James’s on the back at her funeral, he was there to make sure James’s kept eating.  If anything he seemed to be shoving more food at James than before.  

The maids were finding themselves with less to do as he started doing more of the cleaning around the estate.  Jack had to start reminding Sebastian however when they were on a deadline.  It also took forever to get Sebastian out of the Mansion as he went and double checked on all the cats before he left.  

Sebastian had also added a new pillow to his collection on the bed he shared with MC.  A body pillow replaced her presence where she normally laid.  So every night, after he exhausted himself from cooking, cleaning, and playing with the cats he finally collapsed with his arms wrapping around the pillow.  Many of the cats getting onto the bed with him curling up with him.  

Then he’s let himself shed a tear or two.  

Jeremy Cassel

There are many out there who chuckle at the eccentric ways of Mr. Cassel, how he was always less than serious.  However they had no idea how much of a partier he could be until news of MC’s death reached him over seas.  

He barely made it back in time for her funeral.  During which he was as sober as could be, he was at her mother’s side comforting her and running errands for her father.  He kept stressing over the flower arrangements, trying to set his attention anywhere but at the coffin.  

After the wake he was back on a plane, dark circles more prevalent than before under his eyes. Shortly after, his social media started blowing up with pictures of him at different parties, different bars.  He was trying to escape anyway he could.  Lupin didn’t make an appearance during this time.  Jeremy built himself a reputation of romancing different women.  He would woo girls at the party and while rumors said he slept with them, he never did.   

He would apologize about leading them on, but then ask if they would be alright with staying with him a little more.  Just to sit and watch some tv together.  After marathoning a night of different shows and movies of his favorite actress there were a few girls who didn’t want to talk to him, there were a few who didn’t mind eating room service and drinking champagne while keeping him company.  Even if he wouldn’t look away from the screen once they started. 

Hercule Poirot

It could not be as simple as that.  No way.  Hercule refused to entertain the notion.  As soon as he got permission he was in the dressing room searching for clues.  They had not allowed him near the body so he couldn’t search for any strange marking, but he did ask the mortician to check for him.  While her parents wanted to get on with the funeral as soon as possible, they agreed.

He searched the entire room, while it went to be evident that MC’s perfume and more expensive makeup and been scattered among the women there, Hercule had difficulty finding any clues that might lead him to her killer.  Eventually he did find small evidence of one of the stage hands stealing different materials to make drugs in his home.  When he confronted the man about the potential that he killed MC for uncovering what he was doing the man was nothing but confused. 

George was happy to wrap up the theft and illegal making and selling of drugs, but in truth there was nothing to suggest MC had been murdered, let alone but that man.  Hercule refused to give up, going back to the dressing room and nearly creating his own crime scene as he toppled furniture, trying to find what he had missed. 

Mycroft was the one who came to collect him.  Hercule was standing in the middle of the chaos when Mycroft darkened the doorway.  “She died of a brain aneurysm.”  He was completely calm and matter of fact as he stated it.

“Ah, of course.”  Hercule closed his eyes and nodded.  But he still didn’t move until Mycroft pressed a hand on his back and gently lead him out.

George Lestrade

He was in shock when he heard the news.  It took a few hours before he started crying.  He locked himself up at home and took leave from work to grieve.  

The first time he left his home after a few days was to go and purchase black clothing.  The second time was to go drinking with John and Sherlock.  They shared memories of MC.  It was the first time George had smiled in a while.  

The following day he went out and purchased more beer to have at home.

Sherlock was the one to suggest they should go visit George, while it confused John he was relieved that he didn’t have to drag Sherlock out.  However, John was not prepared for the empty cans and bottles that littered the flat, or the way George slept with a pile of magazine articles of MC spread out before him on the floor.  “Wake up George.  Wake up.”  Sherlock would ‘gently’ kick him while John started searching for trash bags. 

“MC?”

“She’s dead George, she can’t clean up after you.”  With Sherlock’s cold tone John would jump to George’s defense.  Up until George went immediately for another can.

“I need it so I can focus, just one drink and I’ll be ready to clean up.”

“But why George?  Why do you need a drink?”  This time John would be the one raising his voice.

“You can’t possibly understand the hole I feel without her!” George would scream, almost not hearing them saying that they do in response. 

Mikah Hudson

He wanted to blame someone, he started researching what it was that took her from him as soon as he could.  He only allowed himself to cry when he realized there was no one he could blame.  There was no way anyone could have predicted that this would happen.  

While he still went to classes and made sure the bills were paid, he needed reminders to eat or take care of himself.  John set alarms on Mikah’s phone to help him remember.  With a little gentle prodding Mikah eventually did go see someone to talk about his feelings over losing her.  Though most of the time he was just angry when he returned home.  Locking himself up in his room and venting his frustration to a photo he had of MC.  

Sherlock and John suggested they watch Mid-fall Murders together and share memories about MC.  Sherlock did fanboy a few times, sharing little information here and there about what MC was also doing during the shooting of several scenes. The interruptions had Mikah thinking that there was still so much of her history that he didn’t know.  Sherlock didn’t mind Mikah poking him for knowledge.

Even James was happy to share his insight when he found out from another student that Mikah was starting to collect information about MC.

Mikah would spend the next year working and interviewing a lot of different people creating a collection of stories and memories all around MC, until he had the first draft of what could be considered a biography for MC completed. 

James Moriarty

No.  

That was not okay.  That was not okay at all.  This man is on a rampage, he’s tightening down, he’s seeking war.  Anyone he could mess with, anyone he could hurt, he is looking for someone to make pay.  There’s no one he can make suffer.  He could’ve been considered sadistic and childish before even while calculating, but now? Now he was ruthless. If he could find someone to turn his attention on, he would destroy them.  It could be argued he was still acting like a child.  The world took away someone he loved and so he was throwing a tantrum.

First was the director who didn’t take it more seriously, maybe if he had been there, or maybe if they had sent her to a doctor. Maybe, maybe, maybe.  It drove him mad, and if he could find any tiny reason to blame someone for what happened to his Robin, he made them pay.

Meanwhile the only time he seemed to take solace was when he sat in his room with his new doll. Sebastian once made an offer, and in desperation James took him up on it.  Though no matter how often they were alone, or what he told her, what he brought her, she never scolded him for doing bad.  She was a doll, and could never give him those reactions he cherished again.

#guard me sherlock #mourning #grief #death #Sherlock Holmes #John Watson #Mycroft Holmes #James Moriarty #Jack Stillman #Sebastian Moran #jeremy cassel #Hercule Poirot #George Lestrade #older Mikah Hudson