My reading of Gladys Mitchell had been blocked by my
inability to get hold of Printer’s Error: I had read many of them, darting all
over the place in the list, but was now trying to fill in the gaps. Printer’s
Error seemed impossible – but my Secret Santa solved the
problem.
What
Went Right, What Went Wrong: Printer's Error
And now I am back on track, and today am bringing two books
to the table
My Father Sleeps by Gladys Mitchell
published 1944
This is a very Scottish book. And it also deals with
Campbells and Macdonalds and Glencoe – a recent interest on the blog, and with
families where someone has remarried, which we also dealt with, all n this post:
Apricot sky by Ruby Ferguson + Campbells, Etiquette, Hamlet
Mrs Bradley is up in Scotland with her assistant Laura
Menzies (the last name is important: Scottish you see). She is due to give a
paper to a learned conference and we gather is having some holiday first. And
we have Laura’s brother Ian, newly-wed and sailing in the area. They all come
across a very unusual character, Hector Loudon, who claims that he or his house
are being haunted, because of an old crime and miscarriage of justice.
Everybody takes off in different directions, and meets more
people. The author carefully tells us where everybody is going, in some detail,
but after the hundredth placename I was losing the will to live, even though I
have visited quite a few of them.
There are old creak-y houses – ‘probably old Mrs McShuffie,
the deceased crofter, had been the last person to kindle peat in that
particular tin’.
And then:
At the same instant that the thunder died away, through the
gloomy house there sounded a sibilant voice.
“They hanged me, they hanged me my son…Where rest my bones? I died like a dog, and who will speak the word to save me? Who guards the secret my son? Your father sleeps. You must wake him.’
This is the ghost speaking. Mrs Bradley ‘listens
carefully’.
Someone is able to make a point about identification
because of having read their palm: looking at a dead body they say ‘it isn’t
his hand… I never forget a hand I’ve read’. I feel this
was an excellently unusual point. She also says that the palm shows the man to
be a criminal.
I mentioned this in my earlier post on fortune tellers:
Can you Predict which Books I will Feature? - Fortune Tellers
There was a lot of wandering around and catching up with
each other and walking and getting the train and sailing. And more and ever more place
names. The only book comparable with this is Tolkien’s The Silmarillion,
officially the most boring book ever written – ‘the siege of Angband lasted
four hundred years’, which is approximately how long it took to read it. It has
at least one new proper name on every page, and I think this book does too.
Although published in 1944, there is no mention of the war,
which is in marked contrast with the other book in this entry:
Brazen Tongue by Gladys Mitchell
published 1940
I do always love a Home Front book, and this one had interesting details. It wasn’t as compelling as some of her other books, though it was more straightforward.
There was a splendid bit conversation covering various
different aspects of the changed world of 1940:
“Most of the shops have given
up sending [ie delivering orders]. It says so in the windows.”
“They will send for me,” said
Lady Selina, getting up to go to her First Aid class at which, now, she was an
instructor.
“But, Mother, that’s horribly unpatriotic.
After all, there’s not much sense in saving your own petrol if you’re going to
waste other people’s.”
“The tradesmen,” said Lady
Selina, “do not come under the heading of ‘other people.’ I trust, Adela,” she
added, “that your lunatic, when found, will be returned to her proper sphere. I
don’t want her brought in to lunch.”
There is a long, interesting description of a shift at a
Control Centre, where Wardens and volunteers monitor and write up what is going
on in the local area. Someone is dressed in
a pair of navy-blue slacks surmounted by a blithe canary jumper
Which enables me to use this splendid all-purpose picture.
Lunchtime
brings a few minutes of rest for these women wor… | Flickr
During the boring moments of her shift, our heroine Sally
took out a detective story,
and settled herself to read. The book was not an enthralling one, however, and
she wondered, not for the first time, why the masters of the craft did not
produce their detective stories a good deal more frequently than was their
custom. A lazy lot, she considered them, and probably indecently opulent, so
that they had no need to bestir themselves more than about once in six months
for the benefit of their public.
Gladys Mitchell produced approximately one book a year…
I am writing a short story set on the Home Front and I am absolutely obsessed by it all, so will definitely be trying to getting hold of Brazen Tongue. Love the recognising of the palm through having read it. Now and then GM plays an absolute blinder. Of course not only did she write a novel a year, she worked full-time as a teacher. On the other hand she didn't marry or have children which must have freed up a lot of time, but still ... I suspect she did not do very much revising. Chrissie
ReplyDeleteYes, good point about time management, and definitely not much in the way of editing.
DeleteReading her is not like reading anyone else, and I always enjoy her books, even if sometimes I end them and think I still have no idea what happened
Maybe not in this book, but I remember a big deal made of the pronunciation of Menzies (with an Australian variation too, I think).
ReplyDelete"This book" referring to My Father Sleeps, just be clear!
DeleteWinking at the Brim.
DeleteI didn't remember that (except to know it wasn't in this one) and of course Nick Fuller was able to put us right. I will get to that one eventually. Thanks Nick!
DeleteYes, WATB is the one with a search for a creature like Nessie. The book "features" a young relative of Mrs B, one of many who manage to get into sticky situations. Mrs B may be Dame Beatrice in that book, but I read the books out of order and had a hard time keeping the names straight so I stick with the Mrs. I'm reminded of a Patricia Wentworth standalone which also included a loch said to harbor a monster--one of her thriller types with an ending that surprised me!
DeleteThat sounds very tempting - and I too wonder whether I've got her honorifics right, I should be like you and pick Mrs and stick to it. I just like the sound of Dame Beatrice...
DeleteBut this Wentworth book sounds even more tempting. Which one is it?
Peter Dickinson's Emma Tupper's Diary also features a Nessie-type monster.
DeleteThe Wentworth book is Fear By Night. WATB doesn't have a lot of travelling IIRC, so maybe it wouldn't be hard to get through!
DeleteRoger: I haven't come across that Dickinson book - is it good?
DeleteMarty: Thanks, I will read it
Not very good, as I recall. A combination of early teen adventure and domestic soap opera.
DeleteThanks - I will stick with the ones I know and love
DeleteThe Home Front is such a great setting for a novel, Moira. I'm not surprised you liked that one. So much there to explore. I'm struck, though, but the the palm reader's comment. I'd never thought of being able to identify a hand from having read the palm, but that is staying with me. I could definitely see that as a factor in a story....
ReplyDeleteIt's a really good point isn't it? I bet you could do something good with that...
DeleteI'm surprised I've never come across this plot device before
Don’t mention the war… Lots of wartime authors ignored the conflict, just as other writers in other times made no mention of events going on around them. Think of Jane Austen who never directly referenced war or slavery. Way back during lockdown I discussed this with a friend who writes romantic novels and was undecided whether to set her work in progress against the backdrop of the Covid pandemic. We felt that people know just how awful life can be in situations like this, and consequently they don’t want to read about it - they want escapism!
ReplyDeleteThat was me.
DeleteInteresting that some of her books did feature the war a lot, while others didn't mention it.
DeleteAnd I suppose readers vary as much in what they want to read about in wartime or other difficult eras
Sunset Over Soho includes a character's experience in the rescue at Dunkirk. I didn't really care for the book, which had a protagonist I didn't like plus some confusing shifts in the timeline. But I thought the Dunkirk episode was pretty good.
DeleteI just mentioned that below! I thought it was one of her weirdest books, but I actually liked it.
DeleteThe timeline and characterisation in Sunset over Soho was so weird I got hold of two copies to make sure I hadn't got hold of a defective one. I still wonder if the ts. was blown up in the publisher's office.
DeleteRalph Partridge, an admirer of Mitchell, said "Miss Mitchell does her best to represent English surrealism. Sunset over Soho seems to centre round a body in a coffin, which starts its career somewhere up the Thames and eventually comes to earth in an air-raid shelter in Soho, having apparently dropped out of a church. Someone takes part in the evacuation of Dunkirk, and someone else takes a trip to the Canary Islands. No incident is ever explained, and there are plenty of incidents; while Mrs. Bradley lords it over all. This must be the deepest of Miss Mitchell’s constructions, as even her most ardent fans have been unable to fathom its beauties."
If I remember rightly, the same person takes part in the evacuation of Dunkirk, and takes a trip to the Canary Islands, with memory loss in between or possibly even three of them do it!
It is a quite extraordinary plot: I think I said it said my head spinning. And yet, and yet - nothing made sense but it kept you reading. I liked that the 'hero' might have been a villain.
DeletePerhaps life felt that surreal when she was writing it!
Was someone asking about another book set in Scotland? In My Bones Will Keep, Laura is on her own with Mrs Bradley at a conference and sets off on a bizarre adventure, once again.
ReplyDeleteThis is Chris Wallace, by the way. Great Mitchell fan.
DeleteThat's one of the books with truly odd smuggling methods! It also showcases Laura's Amazonian swimming skills: No boat? No problem, we'll just swim on out to the island in the middle of the loch. I don't remember if there was a resident monster, but I'm sure Laura would have been a match for it.
DeleteThanks Chris, that sounds like the one that was being asked about! GM and Mrs B did like a trip to Scotland.
DeleteMarty, that sounds not just Amazonian but Swallows & Amazonian. As I always say, the poet Philip Larkin had a particular appreciation of scenes where Laura went swimming.
It was a comment on Facebook, Chris - I have passed on your helpful response
DeleteThere were some other books that included travel in Scotland, although not set there exclusively. The Devil's Elbow has a bus trip, Cold Lone and Still has a walking tour, and The Whispering Knights is about visits to ancient sites in England and Scotland including an excursion to Skye.
DeletePlenty of place-names on every page I hope! There are hikers/hiking holidays in Hangman's Curfew and Here Comes a Chopper, both in England,
Delete“The tradesmen do not come under the heading of ‘other people.’ “
ReplyDeleteWell, that sure speaks a mouthful. Tells me everything I could ever want to know about her.
And unfortunately, every day there seem to be ever increasing numbers of people out there who not only hold that tenet, but can’t imagine there’s anything wrong with it.
In case of doubt, it is entirely clear that we should be condemning this person - not just horrible snobbish and entitled, but also un-patriotic.
DeleteI think Selina turns up, in passing, in some other books although I couldn't say which ones! She definitely disapproves of Mrs B, with whom she has a kind of uneasy truce where the young folks are concerned.
Deleteoh it would be interesting to track that down. I be Nick Fuller knows
DeleteShe may be only mentioned as a sister-in-law, and I'm only going by my reaction to her in Brazen Tongue--"Oh, there's mean old Selina again!" I could be entirely mistaken, too!
DeleteShe'd be a good character to bring back
Delete“…officially the most boring book ever written….”
ReplyDeleteNow that sounds like a challenge. :^). I can think of a few, but I don’t think I could make my case for them without also being boring.
It is always a matter of opinion, and in general I like to be positive - more likely to make a list of best books than boring books. But this one I think will never be defeated in my mind. What was he thinking...?
DeleteHe was, I'm told, thinking about linguistics and very specialised aspects at that. Perhaps half-a-dozen people would be obsessively fascinated by The Silmarillion, for the reasons Tolkien wanted them to be and a few million because it was written by Tolkien.
DeleteAs far as I recall he was trying to get his publisher off his back! The Lord of the Rings had been a lot more successful than anyone expected and the publisher was keen for him to write more of the same, which he wasn't really interested in doing, but eventually he started trying to get some of his old world-building notes into publishable form and was still trying when he died.
DeleteSovay
Yes I'm sure it was popular with his fans. Didn't Private Eye call it SellAMillion?
DeleteI guess that makes sense Sovay. 'Publishable form' is a matter of opinion...
I suspect he'd agree with you about publishable form, but the publishers took a different view once he was out of the way and from a pragmatic point of view, turned out to be right.
DeleteSovbay
Yes - and only one author in a long line where the publishers, family or literary executors said 'the public really wants to see this' without reference to reputation, but with reference to makng lots of money. (Though it is true that for some authors, their fans do want to see everything from their desk...)
DeleteI'd bet that I'm not the only person who immediately thought of Agatha Christie's grandson and later descendants when you wrote "with reference to making lots of money"!
DeleteI knew I didn't need to spell it out!
DeleteConan Doyle's family were infamous for claiming everything they could get after his death, They inspired a sub-plot (?) in one of Anthony Boucher's novels.
DeleteI did not know that. Interesting - obviously a not uncommon occurrence
DeleteIn my version of Brazen Tongue, the publisher notes that GM called it a "Horrible book" in 1976 and among her worst. The publisher disagreed, and I would second his opinion.
ReplyDeleteWhile there are flaws, I found this great fun, especially as it was clearly written during the "phoney war" period (a journalist's ambition is to ratchet the coverage of the murders to be sent to Finland to cover the war with Russia).
Certainly, the opening three chapters, where the bodies are discovered, were effective, especially the fact that they each demonstrated a change brought about by the war.
As always, her children are delightful, even though the escapades of the young evacuees and the willingness to "borrow" items from their "foster parents" would horrify social services and most parents nowadays, but seem to be treated as part of growing up.
I wonder whether there was more of a willingness to mention the war while it was phoney, in part because it was a way of letting off steam about the stupidities. Thirkell clearly had views on the ban on driving with lights on and I believe that more civilians died in traffic accidents before June 1940 than died in combat, the Last Provincial Lady book is surprisingly pointed on some stupidities, Evelyn Waugh having a character using the most terrifying evacuees as a means of extorting money from the civilians and the splendid air raid practice in Nap Lombard's Murder is a Swine come to mind.
Perhaps she overdid the Anthony Berkeley tribute by the end of the book. Considering that in some ways this was one of her most straightforward plots, the last forty pages do require careful reading.
There is one minor character who may touch nerves today who speaks with a very thick accent, which is rendered phonetically (albeit it is comprehensible), but is clearly intended to be seen as admirable .
I believe there are some evacuees in Sunset Over Soho. The protagonist encounters a nun who's having trouble finding places for some children, and they all end up at Mrs B's house. I doubt if the evacuee existed who could terrify Mrs B!
DeleteI'm with Marty - Mrs B could get even the Waugh evacuees from Put Out More Flags eating out of her hand, given time.
DeleteSovay
A good summing-up AdrianDominic - fascinating and authentic-sounding details make up for a few plot deficiencies. What a strange time that must have been. Nancy Mitford is another author who wrote about that time in Pigeon Pie (recently mentioned here). And Thirkell of course had her sets of evacuees. Lissa Evans modern books about the second world war are very well researched, and the story of the evacuee in Crooked Heart is tremendous.
DeleteGoodnight Mr Tom - a book and TV film about evacuees that I feel are manipulating me, but it works, very touching.
Sunset Over Soho - now there's a book. Doesn't the nun end up in the boat rescuing the retreating army from Dunkirk?
Gladys Mitchell, Eveleyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford - there's a meeting I'd have liked to witness.
Margery Allingham's The Oaken Heart describes life in a coastal village in the first years of the war. It was based on her own and her husband's experiences there. (I read somewhere that Allingham was apparently ready to join a British Resistance if an invasion did come.) The book was a compilation of articles she had written for a newspaper, supposedly "letters to America" trying to influence US feelings about the war.
DeleteI've read about that but never read it. I think the Mrs Miniver book by Jan Struther was similar, and then was changed for the film
DeleteSpookily I am reading Waugh's Put out more flags. It is a great read and very funny. Basil Seal, a cad, teams up with a 'challenging' family of evacuated children called the Connollies to extract money from well-meaning, well-heeled rural types. The children behave appallingly and they and Basil split the money he gets for removing them from these delicate people...I look foward to the ending. Such a good read and an amusing and cynical view of the war effort.
DeleteYes you could rely on Evelyn Waugh for a tough view, no sentiment. I read it years ago and don't remember much about it.
DeleteThe Connollies are named after the critic Cyril Connolly. Waugh had the hobby of naming characters in books after enemies - the longest-lasting was his college tutor, C. R. M. F. Cruttwell, who was said to dread the appearance of every new book by Waugh
ReplyDeleteI wonder whether, assuming there is an afterlife, Waugh's revenge would be made sweeter or tarnished by the fact that Cruttwell is remembered now because of Waugh's vendetta (possibly the same for Connolly, although I do remember his criticisms being mentioned perhaps 40 years ago).
DeleteSimilarly, would Enzo Goldfinger be recalled for his architecture at all now if people weren't made curious about it by the Ian Fleming book and especially the film?
Excellent topics for discussion.
DeleteI think of Connolly as a person in his own right - though he also turns up in one of Nancy Mitford's book - under a different name but plainly him - and he took enormous offence and didn't speak to her for some years before eventually they made up. But Enemies of Promise is still around....? The phrase 'the pram in the hall' will live on.
Waugh was lucky that his enemy had such a wonderful name. Calling detestable characters Brown or Williams wouldn’t have had the same effect.
DeleteNerys
That made me laugh!
DeleteConnolly is also the original for the fat man in Elaine Dundy's The Fat Man and Me
DeleteId forgotten that - she did know everyone
DeleteWasn’t it the Ancient Egyptians who believed that the best revenge was to efface your enemy’s name from history and ensure that they were forgotten for eternity? They wouldn’t be impressed with Waugh’s approach.
DeleteSovay
The other Ancient Egyptians would have relished Ozymandias's fate.
DeleteOzymandias shows that you can't efface your enemy’s name from history and ensure that they were forgotten for eternity, so leaving them as a perpetual target for derision is probably the next best thing.
Tracey(?) Tynan never recovered from her parents!
DeleteYes, archaeology shows us that however many cartouches you chip away, you're always going to miss a few ...
DeleteSovay
I remember when I first read Ozymandias I really wanted to know if it was a real person. One of the many unanswered questions of those years. I love living in an age where it is easy to find out
DeleteI dont think I know about the Tynans' daughter - i will look her up (as I just said - easy to do now)
DeleteOzymandias was the Greek name for Ramesses II - one of the more famous (and nasty, of course) pharaohs of the New Kingdom,
DeleteGladys Mitchell mentioned Ozymandias in some of her books. In the last one, she had a character come to Mrs Bradley's home saying that he was Ozymandias and trying to convince people that he was crazy. (On the grammar front, convince and persuade seem to be swapped sometimes in spite of not being interchangeable. I get confused at times but I think it's "convince ...that" and "persuade...to"?)
DeleteI looked up the tynan's daughter - very interesting, and she wrote a book that I really ought to read, someting like her life in 10 garments, could it be more Clothes in Books?
DeleteI certainly didn't know that about Ozymandias till relatively recently, it was such a surprise when i found out - I had assumed even if he was real, he would be someone (now) obscure.
They should mention that when it's being taught, but perhaps it isn't now.
I hadn't noticed that about Mitchell, Marty, I will look out for it.
convince and persuade is exactly the kind of disitinction the BBC was really hot on when I worked there, and yes they are different! I never had any trouble with that one.
Due to versus owing to - I get the difference but do have to pause a second to check I've got the right one. Much used in train annoucements in the UK, usually wrongly: 'The 6.15 train has been cancelled owing/due to cows on the line....
I don't think it was until later in the nineteenth century - after the Rosetta Stone was translated - that people knew the Egyptian names of the pharaohs. They'd know of them in Hebrew and Greek, but nothing about connexions between them.
DeleteOh right, I wouldn't have thought of that.
DeleteI read that Fleming and Goldfinger knew each other and hence the film name. Visiting Goldfinger's house on North London I couldn't help feeling slightly cheated that it did not have interiors designed by Ken Adam but was a comfortable, medium size, mid-century modern house. Lovely in its own way but you could never fit a laser cutting machine thingy in there. As for Connolly...
ReplyDeleteI believe Erno Goldfinger was unhappy about his name being used in this connection: there was a bit of a fuss and then it died own.
DeleteGoldfinger may have lived in "a comfortable, medium size, mid-century modern house.", but he built brutalist tower blocks. There's one at Shepherd's Bush roundabout.
DeleteTo be fair, the people who live in them like them. They're very comfortable.
I agree. There is often a marked, to be polite, difference in design aesthetics and values between the homes of modernist architects and their housing designs for others. Notably in social housing. And the cruel joke of naming the notoorious Hulme crescents in Manchester named after British 18th century classical architects e.g. Robert Adam Crescent etc.
DeleteOwen Hatherley in A guide to the new ruins of Great Britain is interesting on this as on many other 20th century architectural scandals
I try to keep an open mind about architecture, and have no technical knowledge, but sometimes it's hard
DeleteI think it was Mies van der Rohe (sp?) who had a rule that the people who lived in the apartment buildings he designed had to all use the same color curtains. I doubt if he would have liked being dictated to in that way himself!
DeleteHe certainly didn't like people opening the windows generally or putting curtains / blinds up etc as in the Farnsworth House. How dare they mess with his Modernist purity!
Deleteit is hilarious but outrageous. I love a beautiful building, can admire aesthetics with the best of them, but i am the person looking at houses of all kinds and saying 'where are the cupboards and bookshelves? Where would I dry clothes? What about a room where you can keep wellies and pots of paint?' It's for living in...
DeleteI've probably quoted Professor Otto Silenus in Decline and Fall before, but he's worth a reread. An interesting aspect is that Waugh sympathises with Silenus more than most of Waugh's admirers recognise. Silenus's opinion of himself and his works reflects Waugh's own later opinion that if he weren't a christian he would barely be human
DeleteI'll have to have another look. Yes, I often think about Waugh's Christianity comment
DeleteFrank Lloyd Wright liked to design furniture for his buildings, and had strong views about where each piece belonged; supposedly he kept a key to each house and would let himself in from time to time, check whether the owners had rearranged the furniture and if they had, move it all back again.
DeleteSovay
I didn't know that Waugh's Connollies were named after Cyril. Not very flattering.
ReplyDeleteWaugh didn't hold back. He had a lifelong interest in Connolly and was very rude about him in his letters.
DeleteIn Black Mischief the commander of the King's army is General Connolly. who refers to his wife as Black Bitch..
DeleteHe was unrelenting...
DeleteI looked up Connolly on Wiki and didn't come away with a very high opinion of him, although my impression may not be correct. IIRC the article said that Waugh liked to "tease" Connolly, which sounds like a definite understatement!
DeleteI think it's fair to say Connnolly lived his life in his own way, as did Waugh. Neither particularly nice men I think, though entertaining.
DeleteThis discussion encouraged me to visit The Stone House (the GM tribute site). In an interview with B.A. Pike, GM names Helen Simpson, Anthony Berkeley, and (certainly to my surprise) Freeman Wills Croft as her favourite members of the Detection Club when she joined. I must admit the idea of a novel with Inspector French and Mrs Bradley cooperating is hard to envisage, although it could have been a hoot. She also mentioned Edmund Crispin as a favourite and a charming boy - certainly Gervase Fen and Mrs Bradley as a double act is more plausible.
ReplyDeleteThere are many more interesting comments in that interview (and in the many other articles collected there), and I would recommend giving it a read.
I think Mrs Bradley might have had a lot of respect for French, she liked to leave the "humdrum" detecting to the police and French would have done that wonderfully well. As to what French would think of Mrs B...he'd probably respect her intelligence and maybe even like her personally, but their world-views would probably not mesh too well. Especially Mrs B's idea of justifiable homicide! It might have been very entertaining, though.
DeleteThe Stone House is a wonderful site, I use it regularly, but I've never read that, fascinating
DeleteMarty: It would be interesting to know what the French make of Mrs Bradley - I wonder if she was published there? You could imagine her being a cult favourite
DeleteThis is what Google AI had to say about it, I think with some help from Jason Half:
Delete"Gladys Mitchell's detective novels are celebrated in France for their eccentricity. The famous Grands Détectives series by Éditions 10/18 published French translations of seven Mrs. Bradley novels. French readers praise their vivid, literary prose and surreal atmosphere, affectionately comparing Mitchell's style to a detective-themed French farce.The French editions, translated notably by Katia Holmes and Jean-Noël Chatain, include:Meurtres au clair de lune (translated from The Rising of the Moon)Mort à l'opéra (translated from Death at the Opera)La malédiction du clan Stewart (translated from My Father Sleeps)Crépuscule à Soho (translated from Sunset Over Soho)
French reviews and English-language scholars in France admire Mitchell for rejecting the rigid whodunit formulas of her Golden Age contemporaries. Instead, her books are praised for their eccentric humor, focus on witchcraft, and Mrs. Bradley’s bird-like, "saurian" (reptilian) persona."
Oh thank you, very interesting and helpful! Really enjoyed the translated titles. Crepuscule always seems an ugly word for something that should be lovely...
Delete"Favourite members of the Detection Club" may refer to their personal qualities rather than their writings.
ReplyDeletethe interview made it quite clear that was what she was referring to,
DeleteLater on, she makes it clear that although she wasn't a fan of his books, she liked John Dickson Carr as a human being.
DeleteVery interesting- i would say most members kept their views on members and books to themselves (Chatham House Rules)
DeleteTo be fair to her, the interview was in 1976 and without checking all the dates, I believe she was, in effect, the last woman standing. Also, to clarify my 21.44 remark, it was their personal qualities she was commenting on.
DeleteI can remember an exchange of letters between Carr and Crispin reminiscing about the two of them engaged in bibulous debate draped around one of the middle-aged female members.....
DeleteI'm all for revealing their secret views, especially now there's no-one left to worry
DeleteI still can't work out what I think about Gladys Mitchell, and both the books you mention are new to me. I am interested in her because she retired to Dorset and I like to write about authors/books with local connections, particularly the way in which they create a sense of place. I haven't been able to find out much about her time in Dorset, but will visit The Stonehouse blog to see if I have any luck there.
ReplyDeleteStone House definitely the place for you! It took me a long time to warm up to her, partly because I used to see taglines that she and Christie were Queens of Crime together - and as a very serious Agatha fan, I was expected something more like her. But they are quite different. So I had to get over that. But now I really enjoy her in her own right. Good luck!
Delete