It’s been a while since I picked a British Library Crime classic, but I’m back with another one this week because it’s really good.
So, four men are due to fly on a plane to Dublin, but only three board. When it goes down in the Irish Sea, there are no bodies and the police have no idea who the man was who didn’t board the plane. And so they turn to the Wade family, who knew the four men due to fly, and question them to find out. Over the course of the book we find out about the dynamics of the household and try to work out who on earth was the man who didn’t fly.
According to the introduction it was the first novel to be nominated for the both the Golden Dagger and its American equivalent – and I can see why. For perspective also nominated for the Golden Dagger (then called the crossed red herring) that year was Ngaio Marsh’s Scales of Justice. The following year it was won by previous BotW pick The Colour of Murder. It is not a conventional murder mystery and I’m going to warn you now: there are a lot of unlikeable characters in this one. But it’s so good. I read it in basically an evening and I didn’t care if it ended up making me go to sleep late. It’s that sort of book.
My copy came from a friend – who left a stack of secondhand BLCC’s with me because her bags were too full – but as with the others in the series it’s also on Kindle and I’m sure sooner or later it will turn up in their KU selection.
Another week, another BotW pick that is a little bit niche. But on the bright side, it’s another of my acquisitions from Book Con, so at least I’m bringing the tbr-pile down a little. And hoo boy, the plot to this one is crazy.
This is the second in the Vicki Barr, Flight Stewardess series, and it should be noted I haven’t read the first. Vicki is newly graduated from the stewardess school and is now being sent out on her first flights with Federal airlines. She’s living in a flat with five other stewardesses and has a bit of romance going on with a handsome co-pilot. SHe’s working on a short hop line and on one of her flights she encounters a young woman called Joan who is clearly in some sort of trouble and ends up helping save a timber business. Yes, you read that right a timber business. I now have a rudimentary understanding of how the timber business worked in late 1940s America, as well as the methods of fire-watching and fire fighting that were in place for forested areas. You weren’t expecting that were you? Me neither.
I feel fairly safe in telling you this, because I don’t think any of you are going to be buying this one. So I also don’t mind spoiling the plot a bit further and telling you that Vicki also rescues her younger sister from drowning in an icy pond, takes a crew of hunters up on a flight to a shooting trip – and one of them shoots a window out on the plane on the way – and that the denouement of the timber plot involves landing the plan on a track in the middle of the fire and then a life or death fight. All this in under 200 pages. You’re welcome.
The good news is that unlike her British equivalent, Shirley Flight, Vicki’s plane doesn’t crash. Shirley is in a worrying number of crashes over the course of her series, but in this one at least Vicki makes it safely down to earth at the end of all of her flights. It’s slightly random that a teenage air hostess is the one to work out how Joan’s father’s business partner is trying to put him out of business, and also that the guy who is organising the hunting trip is also a timber baron, but coincidences like that are the stuff of Girl’s Own adventure stories. And I love them for it.
There are fifteen other books in the Vicki Barr series and I’d happily read more if I can lay my hands on them at a sensible price because this is my sort of crazy. And unlike some of the other books of the ear, I didn’t spot any racism. Which is a low bar to be cleared, but there it is and the same can’t be said about some of the Shirley Flight Books. Helen Wells is also responsible for the majority of the books in the somewhat better know Cherry Ames series about a peripatetic nurse, some of which I’ve read as well and which are generally easier to get hold of.
My copy came from one of the sales at Book Con (the dealer one I think) and as it’s an American series, they’re not the easiest to lay your hands on if you want them. I can see a couple on the sales sites, but although the actual books are cheap there’s often a hefty whack of postage attached to them because they need to be shipped from somewhere else. But as I don’t think you’re going to be buying them anyway, it doesn’t matter – I just hope you’ve found this as entertaining as I did when I was reading the book!
Yes, the list last week was huge, with lots of good stuff on it – but I have other plans for some of them. Yes, yes, yes, this is cheating because I finished this on Monday. No, I’m not really bothered that I’m breaking my own rules again because I’m jet lagged and I’ve caught something with a cough from the plane (no it’s not Covid, I did a test). So here we are with a rule breaking BotW pick, you’re welcome.
Roller Skates is a Newberry award winning children’s book, first published in 1936. Set somewhere in the 1890s, it tells the story of a year in the life of a little girl called Lucinda, who moves to New York to stay with two ladies while her parents are away in Europe. Lucinda has a greater degree of freedom while living in New York than she is used to at home, and as a result explores the city on her roller skates and makes a variety of friends along the way. Lucinda clearly comes from a fairly well-to-do background, but many of her friends do not, and she learns a lot about the way of the world from her adventures.
My love of children’s books from the first half of the twentieth century is sufficiently well known at this point – and this was one of my acquisitions from Book Con this year. And as is often the case in books of this age, there’s more death in Lucinda’s life than might be expected in a modern children’s book, but given my grandma’s stories about her childhood, nothing that wasn’t realistic. I haven’t read a lot of children’s books set in late nineteenth century urban America and that made this interesting even beyond the lovely writing. It’s hard to tell whether I would have loved it as a child the way that I did Lottie and Lisa – which was written about ten years later and which I used to borrow from the primary school library on the regular and obviously is the basis for one of my favourite Disney movies – but as an adult with an interest in the genre is an interesting one.
I’m not expecting many (any?!) of you to want to read this, but if you do, you’re going to have to pick it up second hand I’m afraid, but there are a few copies on Abebooks.
Long-time readers will remember that I love a book or a podcast about a business disaster, and this week’s BotW pick is indeed a business disaster, but also a very quick turnaround on one of the big financial collapses of recent times.
Michael Lewis is the author of among other things The Big Short and Moneyball, and was working on a book about Sam Bankman Fried as the whole FTX collapse unfolded. And Going Infinite is the result – the story of the rise and fall of the world’s youngest billionaire and the crypto empire he founded. I should probably explain SBF as he’s known shouldn’t I? For a couple of years he was the bright young thing of the financial world – the wunderkid who had left the trading firm he worked for to found a crypto trading firm and then a crypto exchange. All of this made him the poster boy of Crypto and his friendly nerd persona – wild hair, constantly multitasking and playing computer games while doing TV interviews – right up until the point where it all came crashing down and he ended up on trial for fraud.
On the one hand, this has the fact that Lewis was on the scene when the collapse happened and so this is informed by first hand observations and interviews with the players involved. On the other hand, Lewis went into this endeavour expecting to write one thing and ended up with a breaking news story on his hands and clearly got the book out as quickly as possible after it all happened – this came out in the US just as the trial was starting. On the other hand, I’m not sure the whole thing was quite resolved enough that the point it was being written for it to have a strong enough central thesis.
I read this in less than 36 hours – but I have also read a lot of long reads and listened to at least three different podcast series about SBF and FTX so part of the interest for me is seeing how they all compare to each other and how the story is changing and evolving. So i don’t know how this is going to hold up in a year’s time – this paperback has already been added to with an epilogue about the court case – but for now, it’s the most in-depth look at it all that I’ve found.
You can buy Going Infinite on Kindle, Kobo or in paperback – and it should be fairly easy to get hold of as it’s a high profile author on a big, well known scandal/court case.
Today’s pick is part of the bounty from that Persephone trip I mentioned on Saturday. And I’m quite pleased with my choice!
Guard Your Daughters is the story of a family of five sisters – four of whom are still living at home, whilst the oldest has recently married. It’s the early 1950s and their mother stops the girls from going to school, or making friends – and if she can from leaving the house at all. Their father is a mystery writer and devoted to his wife and to keeping her from being made ill by goings on around d her. Told by Morgan, the middle sister, in some ways it’s a light and fluffy book as you follow the day to day lives of the girls. But under that there is a darker secret.
I remember my mum saying to me once that as a parent it is your job to bring your children up so that they can go out into the world and live independently without you. On that front, Morgan’s parents appear to have failed big style. The elder girls had a governess, but she left some time before the start of the novel and the youngest sister, Theresa, is going without a proper education and is busy trying to make sure no one forces her out of the world that she’s made for herself. And the elder girls seem to being kept in the sort of splendid isolation that a strict Victorian father might have come up with – encouraged to work on accomplishments – despite the fact that the world has changed. How did eldest sister Pandora manage to escape in marriage? Well read it and you’ll find out.
Interestingly Persephone have included a selection of reader reactions to the end of the book – because this is a bit of a polarising one. I can’t say that I liked many of the characters but I was fascinated to see what was actually going on in the household. I’ve seen some people compare it to I Capture the Castle and I don’t think that’s necessarily wrong, although this is darker than I remember that being. Anyway, I read it in less than a day and it gave me lots of thoughts, so I recommend it!
My copy came from Persephone in Bath – you can order direct from them or you may be able to find it (or order it) in larger bookstores
A historical fiction pick today, and one that has taken me a while to read on account of my brain’s refusal to concentrate on long books when I’m tired and my uncertainty on how things were going to turn out and my current need for closure and happy endings!
It’s 1919, the war is over and the world is starting to return to normal. Except that normal seems to mean that all the gains that women have made during the war are being rolled back and having had a taste of independence the world is now trying to relegate them back to domesticity. Helen Simonson’s new novel focuses on three characters trying to figure out what their place is in the post-war world. Constance had taken over the management of an estate, but is now losing her job and her home to make way for returning men. After nursing the mother of her employer through influenza, she is sent with her to the seaside, where she meets Poppy and her group of lady motorcycle riders, and Poppy’s brother Harris, an injured wartime pilot who is still coming to terms with his new reality. And then there is Klaus, German by birth but a naturalised British citizen, who has got a job as a waiter again, but is finding that he has to keep a low profile on account of his name and accent.
This is a smart and thought-provoking novel set at an interesting time that is ripe for fiction. It’s also a coming of age story, but there is a deal of darkness to balance the tea dances and parties. The interwar period is one that I love reading about – but I haven’t read a lot of fiction set exclusively at the start of that period, and it gave me plenty to think about as well.
My copy came from NetGalley, but it’s out now and available on Kindle, Kobo and in hardback.
It’s only right that the week after Book Conference, my book of the Week pick is a bonkers Girls Own boarding school story. So buckle up, this has got a lot of plot to get though…
I was going to say that I don’t know where to start on the plot, but I do: the start, because this opens on a twin arriving at Riverlea having run away from the boarding school she was attending after the parents decided they would be better apart from each other. And it only gets wilder from there. It’s got (not in order and not exhaustive) film stars, vindictive PE teachers, hidden talents, missing treasure, salvation through cricket, missing heirs, near drowning and a shipwreck. And those last are not at the same time. And it’s only just over 200 pages long.
Now I normally like my school stories a little saner – if by saner we mean the realistic (in comparison) boarding school in the Alps where you might get lost up a mountain that Elinor M Brent Dyer offers. But sometimes you just need something crazy. This was a great way to spend an evening and I thank my friend for letting me read it first.
I can’t even tell you where to get this – it’s long out of print and I’ve never seen it before – but I’m also not expecting many of you to want to read it because it’s niche. So niche. But also hilarious.
Yes this is something of a cheat, because I finished this on Monday, but it would have been Sunday night if I hadn’t been so very tired after book conference. So here we are, and let’s hope now that I’m not scuppering myself for next week’s pick!
When an Amy Snowden marries a much younger man, her neighbours are outraged. When she then apparently kills herself a few months later, her husband then disappears. The coroner rules it suicide, but Sergeant Caleb Cluff isn’t convinced. He knows the area and Amy and thinks someone is getting away with murder. So he sets out to find out the truth about what happened to Amy, despite the disapproval of his colleagues.
This was originally published in 1960, but like the Lorac the other week it is another that is really good at conjuring the location and the people and is very atmospheric. It’s also quite creepy – as a reader you’re not in a lot of doubt about whether it was a murder at the start but it builds and builds. Yes there are some slightly dubious attitudes here, but it does all make sense within itself. This is the first in a series and I will look out for more.
This is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment, so if you don’t read on kindle you may have to buy the paperback or wait for it to cycle out of that for it to pop up on Kobo.
Oh you’re so unsurprised by this I know. I can’t keep myself. I tried to pace myself with this one but in the end, I just finished it. On Sunday evening and here we are!
As I said in last week – this is the story of Willa and Hudson. Willa is a widow and she has just moved to an island in the Pacific north west where she has inherited a house from her great aunt. Her parents want her to get a “proper” job, but she wants to try and rebuild her career as a cookery book ghost writer. Her comeback assignment is for a viral social media star who is more famous for the fact he cooks topless than his actual recipes. But no matter, she is determined. Hudson is her new neighbour. He lives on his parents’ farm, along with one, sometimes two of his grown up children. He’s a handyman and she has a house that needs work. Soon they are spending lots of time together, more than is technically necessary and it’s clear there’s something between them.
In case you haven’t worked it out, this is another romance from Cathy Yardley featuring an older hero and heroine. Both are in their 40s, both have got baggage and like Role Playing a lot of what is going on here is two mature adults figuring out that they’re into each other and then working out if that’s a thing that can work in their lives long term. There is no big external conflict here – and no real conflict between them really – so despite the sadness in Willa’s backstory (and it’s not a passing reference to her late husband, it’s a big part of her) this is actually quite low stress. You want them to get together, they want them to be together; they’ve just got a few things to work through.
So it’s a really comforting read as well as being romantic. And I also loved the setting – in real life I could not cope with living on an island, but in a book: totally. A lovely way to spend a few hours.
Anyway, I had my copy of Do Me A Favour preordered, it’s currently £1.99 to buy on Kindle but it’s also in Kindle Unlimited and also an Amazon imprint in paperback.
As I said yesterday, a busy week in life and also a fairly busy week in reading. And I’m back with a British Library Crime classic pick today, because this is really good – and also has a beautiful cover.
It’s just after the war and Inspector MacDonald is hunting for a coupon racketeer who has gone missing in London, reported missing by his fiancée. In Lancashire Giles Hoggett, a book dealer turned cow farmer, has found something strange and potentially sinister in his fishing cottage. His wife is sceptical but he writes to a Scotland Yard detective who solved another case locally not that long before. Soon MacDonald is visiting for the weekend and it seems that his coupon case may be connected to the missing items at the cottage.
I really like E C R Lorac. Almost every time I read one her books it’s up there for Book of the Week – and it was a surprise to me that it’s been a year since I picked one. She is so good at writing about Lancashire and the communities there, and this really evokes the tight-knit community in the countryside as well as the immediate aftermath of the war. As the granddaughter of farming families (on both sides!) I really love the way she writes about people who know their land, the rhythms of the seasons and that you have to respect nature. Oh and the mystery is pretty good too!
The Theft of the Iron Dogs is available as a paperback in the British Library Crime Classics range and it is in Kindle Unlimited at the moment, which means it’s not on Kobo right now, but as I’ve said before the BLCC titles rotate in and out of that still be back on Kobo at some point.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 