Happy Tuesday everyone. A couple of weeks back I was asking for new mystery series to read and given that I have remembered about the Stephens and Mephisto series, I thought I should try some of Elly Griffths’s modern set series. And so here we are.
The Crossing Places is the first in Griffiths’s series about Dr Ruth Galloway, who is a forensic archaeologist and professor at a university in Norfolk . This first book sees her called in by the police when a body is discovered in nearby marshland, where she has previously worked on an Iron Age excavation. The investigating officer, chief inspector Nelson was hoping that the body is that of a missing child who vanished a decade earlier. But when a second child goes missing Ruth finds herself drawn into a decade old investigation into the disappearance of a small child.
So I think I have maybe been ignoring these because the covers are quite dark and bleak and thinking they were going to be more psychological than I can cope with. But actually they’re not. This is maybe slightly darker in terms of the actual crime than AnnGranger, but no worse, although I would say that Ruth’s personal life looks set to be more complex than those are. I enjoyed this and read it fast – and then tried to figure out how to get the next one (the answer ended up being Waterstones Carlisle as Bookcase only had Stephens and Mephistos second hand and a much later book in the series new in Bookends. And this is a completed series, so if I keep enjoying them I can binge my way through, book budget permitting.
I bought this on Kindle – and it was on offer – but this should be super easy to get hold of in a bookshop with a sensible crime selection.
A good solid week in reading. Two off the long runners list, although the easier too as they are the ebook ones, but it’s still progress. And as we’re hurtling towards the end of February I needed a good week! This week coming looks like it’s going to be a busy one, so we’ll see how that all goes.
In case you don’t know, Oliver! is the musical by Lionel Bart, based on Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist. It’s a while since I read the original novel, but from my memory the plot of the musical is somewhat simpler, and the character of Fagin is less evil, more sympathetic and comedic than the book. It’s a mainstay of school productions (I was in one at my primary school, the friend I went to see it with was in one at his secondary school) and the movie adaptation (it won six Oscars!) is a mainstay of Christmas television schedules. The casting of the role of Nancy for a revival of the show in 2008 was the subject of a Saturday Night TV singing contest. I don’t know how you can exist in this country without knowing at least one of the songs from this show. And this is the point where I will admit that it is not my favourite musical by any means, and that it would not usually be high on my list of shows to see. However…
And the however is that not only has this production – a sort-of transfer of one that ran in Chichester last summer – had pretty good reviews, but but it also has Simon Lipkin, who is getting the sort of rave reviews actors dream of. If that name sounds familiar that’s because he’s in that original cast of Avenue Q that I went to see in the anniversary concert in November, and then also a late night show the next night with his friend (and fellow Q star) Jon Robyns. And I’m one of the few that saw him not once, but twice in the doomed X Factor musical I Can’t Sing, which was actually way better than the length of run suggested*. That is to say, I’m a fan and so I will brave Oliver to see him giving what one reviewer called a “career defining performance”.
And I’m really glad I did. It’s absolutely cracking. It’s directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne and designed by his regular collaborator Lez Brotherston and even from our cheap seats at the back of the stalls it looked amazing. We missed a bit of action on the catwalks (can’t be sure how much unless I go and see it again from better seats, which to be fair isn’t out of the realms of possibility). The orchestrations are good, it all whips along faster than I remember it doing, and – wonder of wonder – the child actors barely annoyed me once. But Lipkin really is the star turn. You find yourself waiting for him to reappear – a Pied Piper of pickpockets, dancing and weaving his way across the stage. He’s menacing when he needs to be, but he also cares (in his way) about his gang of children. Plus he’s a man in guyliner and we all know that that’s strongly my thing in musicals. One review described him as a piratical dandy and I would go with that. Here’s the show’s section from the Royal Variety performance – if you just want a taste of Fagin, skip to 3’40…
Anyway, this is rightly selling out all over the place and has just extended until 2026. Who knows how long this original cast will last though – they’ve all been doing it since Chichester so they’re already nearly a year into their commitment at this point and it’s worth seeing – not just for Lipkin, but for Shanay Holmes as Nancy too, and Aaron Sidwell as the very evil Bill Sykes. There aren’t a lot of family musicals in the West End at the moment that aren’t based on Disney shows, so it’s good to have one that is – and if you are thinking of taking kids, the shows at the start of the week start at 7pm (rather than 7.30) so you’re out of the theatre by quarter to ten.
Have a great Sunday!
Oliver! is at the Gielgud Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue, and booking until March 2026.
*I Can’t Sing was definitely better than the Spice Girls musical Viva Forever, which opened around the same time, lasted slightly longer, got similarly bad reviews but remains the only show I’ve ever been to where the audience didn’t know it had finished until the actors jogged back on clapping for bows.
Some quality wandering in Carlisle again for today’s post, mostly in Bookends and Bookcase. I’ve been up a couple of times since Christmas so this is a bit of a compendium of visits.And yes, I did buy stuff. Of course I did. Every time.
Firstly please note they’re advertising a book festival up this way next month.
Words by the Water has an interesting looking line up and Bookends is the official bookshop. If you’re anywhere near by, the website is here if you want to take a look.
And they’ve got a nice table of books featuring the authors inside now which is a change since January:
But then of course you want to swap out the Christmas stuff by now, and take a chance to do something a bit different because you can put Colleen Hoover, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Richard Osman and Emily Henry out at any time! And given that I think all of them have newbooks out this year, you probably will be!
There’s also some nice looking new releases as well. After seeing the same things on the new books shelves for ages, we’re starting to get a bit of variety. And I approve of that. Onwards towards March releases.
Happy Friday everyone, it occurred to me that I haven’t done a round up of all the various series posts I’ve done for a while. But there’s so many of them now that I’ve actually just done the romance ones for you today because it’s February and it’s Valentine’s Day the other week. And I’ve tried to categorise them a little bit for you.
I read Julie Tieu’s Fancy Meeting You Here back in the autumn of 2023, which was an opposites attract romance with an overstretched florist and a caterer who happens to be the brother of one of her friends. I have the follow up – with a fake relationship between colleagues on work trip – on the Kindle waiting to be read. But I’m now two behind because Tieu has a new book out this week. The Girl Most Likely too is set at a twentieth High School reunion, with the heroine attending with her former frenemy and discovering that their roles are now reversed – she’s the one without direction, he’s the one who is thriving. We all know that enemies to lovers can be a bit hit or miss for me, but I am optimistic about this one, although I really should wait until I’ve got the backlog down a bit before I buy it…
After picking a Kate Shackleton yesterday which was particularly evocative of Yorkshire I thought I’d mention a few more books set around the county
Let’s start with one of my very favourite Georgette Heyer’s – Venetia. Most of this is set in and around Venetia and Damerel’s houses in rural Yorkshire. Venetia is feisty and independent- but Jasper is one of Heyer’s best hero’s and among the most well fleshed out. Another Yorkshire set historical romance – but with a very different vibe – is Sarah MacLean’s Ten Ways to be Adored while Landing a Lord. Our heroine is running the family estate with very little money, and the hero is escaping from fashionable society to the country. This is the second in the Love by Numbers series.
When other people were reading Rivals, I was reading Barbara Taylor Bradford. And A Woman of Substance is set in Leeds and the surrounding countryside. I think this was the first book with sex scenes I ever read but it’s mostly a big old saga as Emma Harte raises herself up from housemaid to department store tycoon. I did read the rest of the trilogy and some of her others, but I think this – which was her big breakthrough was the best.
I mentioned it in the summer when I went to see the stage adaptation at the Open Air Theatre, but a reminder that Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden is set in Yorkshire. I’m going to admit that I haven’t reread this since I was a child, so I can’t swear to how the original is aging… and of course there’s also James Heriot and his adventures in veterinary medicine.
Another book I read recently is Sovereign, the third in the Shardlake series, which sees Matthew following in the train of Henry VIII as he makes his progress to York. As well as a good murder plot it’s also really good at creating sixteenth century York – and given how much of old York still exists you can really conjure up the settings in your head. It was particularly good for me because my history supervisor at university was based in Kings Manor, which is one of the principal locations.
And finally several of the series I really like have installments in yorkshire – including Lady Julia Grey and Royal Spyness, but you really need to ahve read the others to get the most out of them.
Breaking all my own rules this week with the only Kate Shackleton mystery I haven’t read yet, which I’ve read extremely out of order which is not the best idea but which has a very good murder plot.
Kate is called in to investigate a death at a quarry in a Yorkshire village. Two children went to get their dad after a days work and the elder finds him dead and they run for help. But when they return the body is missing and the local police are more inclined to believe that Ethan has left his wife Mary Jane after an argument. But Mary Jane believes her daughter Harriet and pleads for Kate’s help and Kate is unable to resist. What happened to Ethan – who was a union organiser and had also fallen out with his best friend who was about to sell his farm and move away.
This is the third in the series and as well as having a good and twisty mystery also sets up some of the running plot strands in later books which I had sort of wondered about but would have wondered more if I had realised how many books I had (or hadn’t) read in the series. Like Dandy Gilver these are historical mysteries that have darker solutions than you might expect from the covers – and I sort of like them more for that because of the variety and inventiveness of them – and because Agatha Christie and the actual golden age books are sometimes darker than you remember them being – Sleeping Murder, Artists in Crime, Nemesis – they all have grim bits in them.
Anyway – these are easy to get hold of, I don’t think the series is over so there may be ebook offers next time a book comes out whenever that may be. Any bookshop with a reasonable crime section will have them – I think that’s where I got this one.
Yeah, so the reading list is being held up by the audiobooks and I’m not really sure why, because it felt like an ok week in reading. The Kings Loot is nearly finished though, and I’m not making bad progress on the Holly Stars. But that still reading list is looking a little long, so I need to do a bit of work on that front this week, or at least try to.
Happy Sunday everyone and hilariously this post was mostly written before I realised that in order to compare something to Jonathan Creek, I probably needed to explain what Jonathan Creek was and why I love it because it is somewhat vintage these days and I am old. So now I’ve done that, my review of Ludwig will make more sense…
Ludwig is a six-part detective drama-comedy series starring David Mitchell as John, an anti-social puzzle designer and Anna Maxwell Martin as his sister-in-law Lucy. In the first episode Lucy sends for John to help as her husband, his identical twin brother James has gone missing. James is a police detective and has left her a letter of resignation as well as some instructions. Lucy says that James has changed over recent months and rather than submit his resignation or report him missing she wants John to pretend to be James and infiltrate the police. Thus starts the running plot of the series alongside a murder of the week each episode.
I described this series to one of my work colleagues as Jonathan Creek but with puzzles instead of magic and a running plot beyond Creek’s will they or won’t they in the Maddie years. I struggled whether to call it a drama or a dramedy or a drama comedy in the description at the top because there is humour but it’s not laugh-track sitcom funny (or at least what sitcoms are aiming for) and if the comedy to drama scale has Brooklyn 99 at the comedy end and something really bleak at the other, this one falls somewhere closer to the halfway point than to the Brooklyn 99 end. It’s got less jokes than Deadloch but it’s also nowhere near as bleak as the final episode of that gets (which was nearly too far for me).
I really enjoyed the murder of the week element, but I did worry how they were going to resolve the fact that John was pretending to be a police officer – and what might happen to those cases that he had solved. But actually it sorted that pretty neatly in the end. And it’s got a lot of familiar faces to me in the various murder cases – mostly people who I’ve seen in the theatre more than on TV – like Hammed Animashaun who was one of the scene stealing thugs in the Kiss Me, Kate I loved so much last summer.
This has already been commissioned for a second series, which is good news for a number of reasons. If you haven’t watched it yet, it’s on the iPlayer now in the UK, but I’m not sure what the international streaming situation is – BritBox US’s website doesn’t work properly for me because I’m in the UK and I can’t face setting up a VPN just to find that out!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 