Anne Beddingfield is at a loose end after the death of her father, an impecunious academic. She goes to London to look for work and adventure, and one day witnesses a man’s death at a Tube station (London’s underground train transport system).
She decides to investigate, and this leads to her taking a cabin on a ship sailing for South Africa to find out more about the man’s death, which she thinks may also be connected to another death in a country house. Shenanigans ensue, of course.
The spine of this book said it was first in the “Colonel Race” mysteries by Christie, and Colonel Race is a character in this book, but not in the way Poirot or Miss Marple are the main detectives in their stories. Miss Beddingfield is the main character in the book, and it’s a standalone story in which Col. Race appears as a background character.
I appreciate that Christie was experimenting with style here—after two Poirot mysteries and a Tommy & Tuppence mystery, she moved on to try something else. However, I am not sure this effort at a thriller was completely successful.
Anne is interesting, but she is attracted to men who are a bit brutal and harsh. She rejects a man who respects and admires her and instead is interested in someone who yells at her and orders her around. This preference was off-putting and I understand why this has not made any “best of” lists. There is a lot of Agatha Christie material out there, and I recommend starting elsewhere (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Death on the Nile, And Then There Were None, and The Body in the Library, and Murder on the Orient Express are well known for a reason. I also have a soft spot for Dumb Witness—a cute dog! and Crooked House—if you want to try something not related to Poirot or Marple).
Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt
Published 2022
Despite opening from the point of view of Marcellus, a Giant Pacific Octopus who lives in an aquarium, this is not a sci fi book. All the other point-of-view characters are humans living normal human lives.
The primary characters are Tova, a lonely older woman who cleans the aquarium and befriends Marcellus, and Cameron, a young man who can’t seem to hold a steady job and who is searching for his identity and some stability to escape his troubled past.
Tova is considering retiring and moving to a retirement home as she has no one to care for her as she ages—she’s a widow whose only son tragically died many years ago when he was just eighteen. She is so focused on her lack of biological family that she overlooks the people already in her life.
Cameron also thinks of his past as his destiny. His drug-addicted mother left him with his aunt and never told him who his father was. Cameron finds his father’s class ring and goes to search for someone to tell him who he is.
Of course, eventually Tova and Cameron meet at the aquarium, and Marcellus helps them realize that their pasts may hold tragedy, but they can move forward together.
While I occasionally wanted to shake some sense into the characters (especially Cameron), this was a sweet book about connection and identity and I enjoyed it.
I made it through my 6-hour exam (hooray!), so I now turn my attention back to books I have read somewhat recently.
Unnatural Death, by Dorothy Sayers
Published 1927
At dinner one evening, Lord Peter Wimsey chats with a doctor who suspects that one of his patients was murdered, though he cannot prove it. She was an elderly woman with terminal cancer, so it is not unusual that she died, but in the doctor’s opinion it is unusual that she died so soon and suddenly near the end of the previous year.
His speaking up caused a lot of fuss and led to his needing to move out of the area due to bad feeling against him in the village. Lord Peter decides to investigate, despite the doctor’s protests (wanting to leave well enough alone).
More suspicious deaths assure Lord Peter that he is on the track of an unscrupulous killer, but with the murder method being extremely difficult to trace, it is a challenge for him to prove the connection.
Another good mystery from Dorothy Sayers and an opportunity to spend time with the erudite Lord Peter and his friends.
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, by Dorothy Sayers
Published 1928
On Armistice Day, 90-year-old General Fentiman is found dead in the titular gentlemen’s club. He has been in poor health, so this is not unexpected, but there is something slightly strange about his body that Lord Peter notices.
It is also reported that the General’s sister, Lady Dormer, died at almost the exact same time. Lady Dormer’s will leaves everything either to her brother, or, if her brother predeceases her, she leaves everything to her companion.
It becomes important to establish who actually died first, and Lord Peter takes the case to establish if both deaths were natural and who predeceased whom.
Another interesting mystery from Dorothy Sayers, and I also appreciated that it also addresses the internal psychological wounds that soldiers brought back from war. Lord Peter himself has what might be mild PTSD, and one of the General’s grandsons has major physical and psychological wounds from being exposed to chemical weapons. This makes his behavior seem more “suspicious,” and whether that means he is guilty of a crime or just suffering from the effects is unclear. These wounds affect all his relationships, from his relationship with his wife to his difficulty in holding a steady job, and I appreciated having this acknowledged though with a fairly light touch as part of the story.
Strong Poison, by Dorothy Sayers
Published 1930
A young woman, Harriet Vane, is on trial for the murder (by poisoning, as the title suggests) of her ex-boyfriend. Lord Peter, attending the trial, is immediately struck by her and cannot believe that she is guilty.
The jury cannot come to a verdict, so there is a delay while a new jury is selected and a new trial can begin. Lord Peter takes this chance to re-investigate the case in hopes that he can discover Miss Vane’s innocence…and possibly marry her after her acquittal.
Unfortunately for Lord Peter, the case and Miss Vane both prove tricky. Discovering new evidence and even another motive for the crime is difficult, and Miss Vane, while not repulsed by Lord Peter, is not in a marrying frame of mind (being in prison and on trial).
The introduction of Harriet Vane to the Lord Peter mysteries is a bright spot and a turning point for the detective’s character development. While the story does not end with them together (which I appreciate), it does end with her being freed from false accusation and the audience is interested to see what happens next.
Service Model, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Published 2024
In a post-apocalyptic setting, a robot valet named Charles serves his elderly master faithfully day after day…until one day he murders him.
Charles leaves his manor house and sets out toward the central robot Diagnostics facility so they can figure out what made him slit his master’s throat and solve the problem so Charles (now un-Charles, as he had to leave his name behind at the manor) can find other employment.
As we follow un-Charles on his adventures, it becomes clear that civilization has completely collapsed and it is unclear if there are any humans left for un-Charles to serve, or if robots are all that remain as relics of time gone by. The robots un-Charles encounters are all trying to complete their programmed missions as efficiently as possible. Of course they don’t have feelings about the futility of trying to do all their human-centric jobs when there are no humans to benefit from these jobs, but if they did, they might be depressed.
Un-Charles, despite his one murderous episode, is a gentle narrator, which helps to lighten a pretty bleak landscape. He does make a friend, the Wonk, who accompanies him on many of his adventures, and who pushes un-Charles to be more than the sum of his programmed parts.
This book gives a sharp critique of late-stage capitalism and joins many other works of art warning about over-reliance upon technology and its dehumanizing effects (as usual, it leads to the collapse of civilization). It is interesting and Tchaikovsky is an engaging writer, but it is certainly a cautionary tale and not just interesting science fiction.
(Sorry for the dark cover image–the painting was very light so I needed to adjust it, but the results were not completely satisfactory.)
The Five Red Herrings, by Dorothy Sayers
Published 1931
Lord Peter, on holiday in Scotland in an artistic community, consults with the local police on the case of an artist found dead among the rocks. While initially thought to have fallen to his death while painting, Lord Peter finds evidence that all is not as it seems, and murder is indicated.
This painter seemed to have provoked quarrels with basically every other artist in the area, so there is no shortage of suspects.
I have slightly mixed feelings about this installment of Lord Peter’s adventures in detection because while the story is interesting, there is a lot (and I mean a lot) of discussion about railway timetables, and all the Scottish characters’ dialogue is written out phonetically, so we get the idea of what the Scottish brogue sounds like.
This is charming for a few paragraphs, and then becomes difficult when it is clear that this will persist throughout the entire book.
Between struggling through some of the dialogue and also not having personal familiarity with the British obsession with railway timetables, this one was a bit more difficult. I also could not stop thinking about the Monty Python railway timetable sketch, which I will link here in case you have not watched it.
Not a bad mystery, but I would not put it in my top-tier list of Lord Peter’s adventures.
