At Home: April Books

After a bit of catch-up of at home activities, I thought it was FINALLY time to share the April book list. April was a tough month for me and when it's tough I go for comfort food. In this case, as you might expect, my reading was heavy (again) on the mysteries! I surrounded myself with some of my favorite characters by some of my favorite authors -- along with  introduction to a new one.

 

I confess, I was about four pages out of a fourth book -- one of what I call my "Bathroom and Waiting Room" books. (These are books with short bits that you can read, put down, and return to  whenever you choose!) I guess it's only fair to put that on in the May books! Onward!

"Tour de Force" by Christianna Brand

This 1955 mystery is another offering in the British Library Crime Classics Library series. Written in 1955, the plot follows Inspector Cockerill (who has appeared in other Brand books) as he embarks on a holiday -- a group tour to Italy with a week on the island of San Juan el Pirata.

Among those on the tour with Cockerill are the effervescent writer Louvaine Barker, fashion designer Mr. Cecil, spinster Miss Trapp, the austere Vanda Lane, and Helen and Leo Rodd, Leo being a concert pianist who could no longer perform after the loss of his right arm, along with their guide, Fernando. 

It isn't long before Louvaine and Leo become attracted to each other. For Helen, this is just another of Leo's flirtations, confident in knowing he will never leave her. But Vanda Lane is also attracted to Leo, adding to the drama of tense relationships in a foreign atmosphere. When Vanda is found murdered in her room, the suspects are narrowed down to the tour group -- a dilemma, as Cockerill believed they were all within his sight at the time. 

The plot is a clever one, as several might have a motive (it appears Vanda  may have been blackmailing the various tour participants) and a true challenge for the vacationing Scotland Yard detective. As the holiday plays out, things are complicated by a second attempt on one of the group's life.

This is the first Brand I've read and I have to say her twisting ending was sublimely clever -- and I wondered why I didn't catch it. The clues are there but so well hidden that it's very easy to pass them by. I did!

If I have any quibble with this book, it has to do with the writing style itself. Brand is a master at skewering the grand tour -- its "first class" hotels, the heat of summer in the Mediterranean, souvenir buying and more -- along with the diverse group of idiosyncratic travelers and the alliances formed. But sometimes her turn of phrase gets overly complicated. Some of this might be writing in dialect for certain characters; some might be my lack of mid-1950s British slang, and some may have to do with dated stereotypical descriptions of certain characters. 

But once you get into it, you can roll with that. And believe me, the ending is well worth the wait!

"The Rising Tide" by Ann Cleeves

It may be a situation many of us have experienced personally -- a reunion, fifty years later -- of friends from high school or college, gathering at a meaningful spot for a weekend of reminiscences  into the joys of their youth. In the case of the characters in Ann Cleeves' "The Rising Tide," the reunion is of five friends at an island retreat center, all of whom had participated in a high school retreat there five decades before.

What I hope is less familiar to readers is having one of those participants found hanging in his bedroom after the first night of memories -- and a little excessive drinking.

It might be suicide. Or is it? That's the question for Vera and her team, Holly, Joe and Billy, and it's a question soon answered. Rick Kelsall, disgraced television journalist/personality was murdered. Who might have had motive for such an act? Annie -- the caterer/shop owner who called Rick her best friend? Peter -- now a pastor after a more rambunctious youth? Louisa -- a former teacher and the sister of the deceased Isobel, who died at the group's first of many five-year reunions? Or Ken -- Louisa's husband, now in mid-Alzheimers. 

Or, might it be someone from their past with connections to the retreat and island -- Judy, the teacher who first brought them there? Daniel, Annie's ex-husband, now a successful island real estate developer? Charlotte, another classmate, former model/now businesswoman and Rick's ex-wife?  Could it be Eliza, Daniel's stepdaughter, who had accused Rick of sexual harassment? Or perhaps Katherine, Eliza's mother and Vera's top boss? Or was it a stranger with an ax to grind?

I'm a fan of the Vera books because Cleeves draws good characters, realistic dialogue and atmospheric locations that bounce off the page. In this case they seem all the better because the circumstances of the characters are so relatable -- people now in their early 70s, all unlikely to kill and yet who knows what lies beneath? Does the solution lie in the present or the past? 

This is one of the most recent books in the Vera series. You don't need to read these in order to fully appreciate them or follow the plots. (There are no continuing threads, at least not in the ones I've read so far.) For readers already familiar with the characters, you can see in this one a growing appreciation and respect between two of Vera's most competitive team members, Joe and Holly. This adds to the story for Vera book fans but does not in any way confuse readers. It's a bit like one of those Easter eggs we sometimes find in a novel with continuing characters.  

Thumbs up for Vera and "The Rising Tide."

"A Chateau Under Siege" by Martin Walker

I usually love Martin Walker's "Bruno" mysteries, set in France's Perigord region, with his usual bunch of friends and neighbors, good cooking, a bit of regional history and a good mystery. This one? Not so much.

In a fairly long open recounting lots of regional history, we find Bruno and his friends at a reconstruction of a classic battle between the French and English in the Hundred Years War. When the horse ridden by Bertrand Kerquelin playing the hero, goes down, Kerquelin jumps off and runs into the fray, where he is stabbed in the chest and rushed to a place of high security for treatment. 

Meanwhile, Kerquelin is expecting a group of prominent guests from various countries with whom he is engaged in a business deal to stay at his chateau, along with his daughters Nadia and Claire. General Lannes from the Ministry of the Interior insists Bruno handle security for the chateau, providing additional guards for support. As they gather, Bruno's friend, Dr. Fabiola, is concerned none of the appropriate regional specialists have been called in to treat Kerquelin, while colleague J.J. is hard at work reviewing  audience videos of the scene in search of a perpetrator.

So far, so good. But then Walker gets into high tech issues (which he over-explained for this reader), issues in Ukraine in the early part of Zelinskyy's presidency and Russian espionage. (Again, deep in the weeds.) Or are actions those of the Chinese? Or both? (Don't ask me -- I'm still sort of confused.) 

I'm not sure why "A Chateau Under Siege" leaves me only lukewarm. Perhaps it is because I read this quite out of order -- this is number 16 (2023) and my previous read was number 10 (2017), so I might have missed something in the character development. Or perhaps it was because the plot became more international than local and just got far too confusing for me. 

In any event, despite an interesting premise, I was glad to finish it.

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