Dorothy Dunnett, Dolly, Johnson

 The Dolly Books of Dorothy Dunnett

 (full details, dates, titles see end of post)

 

These are books you don’t hear about much.

Between 1968 and 1991, Dorothy Dunnett produced seven spy thriller novels, the Dolly books: I have gone to the Dorothy Dunnett Society for names and dates, see below. They all have several titles, the dates on offer round the internet vary wildly, and there is confusion over the author’s name. The first four were published as by Dorothy Halliday (her maiden name), the fifth as ‘Dorothy Dunnett writing as Dorothy Halliday’, the sixth as Dunnett. All are now published (with different titles) as by Dunnett. The 7^th was a late add-on, and is somewhat different.

-      The reason for the name variations is that she was already very famous and successful as a writer of historical fiction – we’ll come to that.

The original titles were, as we say, ‘of their time’ – they sound like the worst kind of Swinging 60s nonsense, and it was probably a good thing to change them. ‘Dolly’ and ‘bird’ not a good combo to our eyes.

In fact Dolly is the name of a yacht, owned by a highly successful portrait painter called Johnson Johnson, who has a side-hustle in spying. Each book is narrated in the first person by the titular ‘bird’, each a resourceful young woman, successful in an area of life implied in the title – so the ‘starry bird’ is an astronomer, the ‘bird of paradise’ a top-level make-up artist.

Each young woman gets involved with Johnson and his spy activities, has a sparky and argumentative relationship with him, and races round the world (sometimes in the yacht Dolly) having wild adventures, investigating wrong-doing and solving murders. Amid all this we are instructed (gently) in aspects of their specialism, whatever it may be, and given all kinds of views on aspects of life: sailing, portrait painting, dyslexia, clothes. The Nanny Bird is particularly interesting in this respect because she is a childless woman who raises children much more successfully than their own parents do – she is a graduate of a super formal nanny college, she sounds very like a Norland nanny -  and some of her methods would raise eyebrows rather than children these days.

I read them all in the 80s, after stumbling across Bird of Paradise first when they had all been printed or reprinted by Penguin. This was either lucky or unlucky – I absolutely loved the book, found it fascinating and colourful and unlike anything else (even though I solved the murder in it instantly). It was, honestly, diminishing returns with the others, though all of them had some interest. The much later 7^th book, the final one, Moroccan Traffic, was a full-scale Dolly adventure, but also gave some closure on the series – old characters re-introduced (Rita Geddes, the make-up artist) and some final explanation of earlier continuing strands. Though, the DD Society says the author was planning an eighth book before she died.

I have just re-read them all, and my opinion holds: Bird of Paradise (now Tropical Issue) is a marvellous book, one that grabs the attention and holds it, full of mysteries and intriguing characters, and with a splendid narrator who writes with a series of malapropisms: this is very well-done as it is not ridiculing Rita, but it is great fun to try to work out what word she means. Department of Nemesis or Necrosis is actually Dept of Narcotics, which gives you a clue to one of the main strands of the book. Rita cooks, plays the piano, does make-up – and starts in London before heading to Madeira and then on to the West Indies. There are endless major events, each of which would be the climax of any other book: physical danger and jeopardy everywhere, sandwiched between parties, film night, sight-seeing. It is an odd mix. It is also very funny and at times affecting. Rita is a most wonderful character.

The other books were very varied, readable enough, but not as memorable as the Bird of Paradise – I realized that I had remembered great chunks of the plot and dialogue over 40 years, but only with that one. But all the first person narratives are very good- the books are full of atmosphere and the young women are quite different and very believable. All the books have endless detailed levels of plot multiplying, and they contain: Dangerous driving, food, cooking, code-breaking, skiing, huge theme-park style castle with underground passages, conga line at a paper bag party (don’t ask), markets and fiestas, film-making, tropical storms, Ibiza before it was famous…  

Johnson is funny and clever but too good to be true – the women start out under-estimating or disliking him, but always end up over-impressed. He is of course brilliant (in a hidden kind of way) AND the greatest living portrait painter AND very rich AND the owner of this wonderful yacht which he sails to perfection AND deeply patriotic and brave. It’s over the top. He is very badly-dressed, which I guess is meant to be his saving grace: otherwise, Lord Peter, much? He even has much-featured bifocal spectacles, to match Lord Peter’s monocle.. But a lot of the dialogue – particularly pertaining to these aspects - is very funny and entertaining.

I have never been able to discuss these books with anyone – I would love to hear from anyone else who has read any of them.

Dorothy Dunnett (1923-2001) was also a leading portrait painter, but is most famous for her two series of historical novels: the Lymond Chronicles and the Niccolo Rising sequence. I recommend the Dorothy Dunnett Society if you want to find out more on these books. They aroused a fanatical devotion among readers, they were and are wildly popular: fans meet up, tour her locations, go to conventions. I read a couple of books in each series, and they were fine, but I couldn’t maintain the interest… What I did absolutely love was her standalone called King Hereafter 1982 – a speculative story of Macbeth, pinning him down and fitting him into real events. I will have to reread that one soon…

It is very difficult to explain something about DD: she writes in a way that is extremely unusual, possibly unique to her (in all her different books). She has clever polished sentences, wonderful dialogue, great characters. And then there is something about her plotting which is unlike anyone else. In one of her historical books (I won’t say…) you are a long way into the book before you even realize who the hero is, and it is amazingly cleverly done. She is very good at sowing seeds and clues and then when a twist comes she shows why you might have guessed. (She would have written wonderful traditional crime stories). You could not begin to imagine some of the things she dreams up, whether it is butterflies or volcanoes, but they live on in your mind. Every aspect of what she is describing is researched in enormous detail: you would suspect that she found out more than is possible to know about some matters. The adventures that her characters get through are exhaustingly detailed. This might sound off-putting, but it’s not meant to be – I lost the energy for them in the end, but most people do not. The only way to find out what is different about her, and whether you like her books, is to try them…

Rita, a woman of the 1980s like myself, wears particularly exotic clothes and bright colours, ….

‘I’d put on a knitted shawl over a quilted jacket over a Fair Isle Navajo waistcoat over a shirt and gauchos and legwarmers. And gloves.’

Rita actually mentions wearing Ralph Lauren, those Navajo knits obv,  so it was off to the Old Ralph Lauren Adverts tumbler as usual, and my collection of knitting patterns.

Often we can think of the 80s as primary colours, perms and big earrings, sticky-out taffeta ballgowns – which is undoubtedly true. But there were amazingly beautiful knitted clothes around at that time too – buy from a designer or make your own. (Or in blogfriend Lucy Fisher’s case, design and make your own. Pictures, Lucy, please.)

And generally Dunnett spends a lot of time telling you what people are wearing: I’m giving some high-fashion 60s/70s samples. Julie Christie (in Mary Quant) with Tom Courtenay – could they be more perfect, more beautiful, more 1960s? In the rain and on the Embankment you would say. Picture of Carnaby St from the UK National Archives.

 

 

1.   Dolly and the Singing Bird (1968)
(later renamed Rum Affair) (aka The Photogenic Soprano)

2.   Dolly and the Cookie Bird (1970)
(later renamed Ibiza Surprise) (aka Murder in the Round)

3.   Dolly and the Doctor Bird (1971)
(later renamed Operation Nassau) (aka Match for a Murderer)

4.   Dolly and the Starry Bird (1973)
(later renamed Roman Nights) (aka Murder in Focus)

5.   Dolly and the Nanny Bird (1976)
(later renamed Split Code)

6.   Dolly and the Bird of Paradise (1983)
(later renamed Tropical Issue)

7.   Moroccan Traffic (1991)
(published in the US as Send a Fax to the Kasbah)