AUTHOR: P.D. James

I'm posting this just to have something for the year 2010. It's ironic, since this is the year I really got into the work of P.D. James, one of the heavyweights of modern mystery writing. I've been reading her books for years, but only when I couldn't find books by authors I preferred. I don't remember exactly when I began to seek out the Baroness James's work for its own sake, but one of her newer novels, The Private Patient (2008), which I read this year, was a turning point. Of her earlier novels, one of my favorites is A Mind to Murder (1963).

James's main detective, Commander Adam Dalgliesh of the Metropolitan Police Service at New Scotland Yard, is something of a towering figure, being not only a gentleman detective but also a poet. That's probably one reason it took me so long to warm to James; Dalgliesh is simply the opposite of warm. James has a secondary detective, Cordelia Gray. I've read some of the Cordelia Gray novels but can't remember a thing about them right now. I'll revisit this author one of these days. I just wanted to get this in before the year ends.

Non-mystery reading

I've been busy reading lately, but I haven't been reading mysteries. I recently discovered, at long last, the rightly well-loved work of P.G. Wodehouse, and I've been working my way through his best-known series, the Jeeves and Wooster books. I got started on Wodehouse when The New Yorker posted a link to this random Wodehouse quote generator. A few years ago, I almost bought a book from Wodehouse's Blandings Castle series at the Fully Booked store at Powerplant, but I decided against it because I didn't know any of the characters and I wasn't sure I would enjoy it. The quote generator convinced me, though, and I went back to Powerplant and bought Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best, a collection of all the Blandings Castle short stories. I enjoyed it very much but didn't want to get started on another expensive book-collecting campaign, so I tried to find what Wodehouse stories I could online.

I found these sites and read as much as I could of what they had, but Wodehouse is a writer best read in bed, not at a desk hunched over a laptop, and so I ended up launching yet another expensive book-collecting campaign anyway. The first book I bought was Right Ho, Jeeves, which I had first read for free on one of the sites I linked to above. I had to own it because it gave me the biggest laugh I've had in years. Of course it couldn't end there. Next I acquired Joy in the Morning. Then it was Jeeves in the Offing. Then Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit. And yesterday, in one fell swoop, Very Good, Jeeves; The Code of the Woosters; and Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves. I've already ordered The Mating Season and Much Obliged, Jeeves, both of which I will pick up later this week. Life is good.

I know now that Wodehouse is the spiritual ancestor of all the witty British writers I love, especially John Mortimer, who is as quotation-happy as Wodehouse himself, and Sarah Caudwell, with her wicked turns of phrase. So while Wodehouse was not a mystery writer, his work gives me the same delicious feeling I get when reading my favorite British mysteries. He did write at least one mystery, though, this short story, "Death at the Excelsior."

NOVEL: Pelagia and the Red Rooster

This is the third and final novel in Boris Akunin's Sister Pelagia series. I don't know how to describe it. It took me more effort to finish than the first two books did, but when I got to the end, I was gobsmacked. Reviewers on Amazon.co.uk say the book ends as though Akunin had lost interest in what he was writing, but I thought it was a breathtaking ending. I wonder whether this is what Akunin intended all along. The first book, Pelagia and the White Bulldog, is a sort of Christie and Chesterton hybrid; I think I enjoyed it mildly. The second book, Pelagia and the Black Monk, is much better, both as a mystery and as a novel. Pelagia and the Red Rooster is completely unlike the first two. It's the first Akunin novel in which I thought I got a hint of what (or how) the author really believes. I feel moved to recommend the entire series. Getting to the end of Pelagia and the Red Rooster is quite an experience.

NOVEL: They Came to Baghdad

It drives me nuts that I can't find my copy of this Agatha Christie thriller. I got it about a year ago at Book Sale, and I just realized a few weeks ago that it's missing. I keep it lying around because I like to pick it up every now and then and reread it. It's a lot of fun, not the most impressive of plots, but plenty of atmosphere, and an engaging protagonist in Victoria Jones. She's the sort of girl who, broke and jobless in Baghdad, remembers that nuts are nutritious and stuffs herself with the free pistachios at her hotel.

LINKS: Father Brown

I've been trying to review the Father Brown stories for years. I have not yet succeeded. For now I'm posting two links to some interesting stuff about Father Brown: a New York Times review of The Innocence of Father Brown dated December 17, 1911 (!), and G.K. Chesterton's essay "A Defence of Detective Stories," which I've mentioned (and linked to) before.

NOVEL: The Coronation

The Coronation is the latest Erast Fandorin novel to be translated into English. I haven't read it yet; I've been so busy with work that I actually forgot about its release. But I ordered it at Fully Booked a few weeks ago (Amazon is too much for my budget these days). Amazon's main (US) site always lags behind its UK site in getting hold of Boris Akunin's novels; The Coronation isn't available on Amazon.com yet, but there's already one (very helpful) review on Amazon.co.uk. I can't wait!

SERIES: Isabel Dalhousie

The Isabel Dalhousie novels by Alexander McCall Smith started out as a mystery series. The first book, The Sunday Philosophy Club, is billed as "An Isabel Dalhousie mystery." By the third book, The Right Attitude to Rain, the cover says "An Isabel Dalhousie novel," which is more accurate. Each book features a problem with which Isabel concerns herself but is really about Isabel’s life and world.

Alexander McCall Smith is best known for writing the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, set in Botswana and featuring the lady detective Precious Ramotswe, and many readers who loved the first series are disappointed by how different the Isabel Dalhousie novels are. These novels are set in Edinburgh, which in my view is enough reason for them to be completely unlike the Botswana series. The Precious Ramotswe novels are spare and graceful; the Isabel Dalhousie novels are busy, gossipy, and packed with interesting details about people fictional and real. The Los Angeles Times points out that the city of Edinburgh is itself a character in these novels, and it's a very interesting character, portrayed by Mr. Smith with great affection.

The first book, The Sunday Philosophy Club (2004), is very weak as a mystery. But Mr. Smith does an excellent job of creating a world that one would love to revisit over and over, and it only gets better with each succeeding book. We meet Isabel Dalhousie, moral philosopher, an independently wealthy woman in her early forties. She lives in Edinburgh and works as the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics. The cast of characters also includes Cat, Isabel's niece, who owns a delicatessen; the bassoon player Jamie, Cat's ex-boyfriend, who has become Isabel's friend; Grace, Isabel's housekeeper; and Eddie, who works at Cat's delicatessen. As the story opens, Isabel is attending a performance of the visiting Reykjavik Symphony at Edinburgh’s Royal Usher Hall. After the performance, a young man falls from the upper balcony, and Isabel decides that she must investigate the circumstances of the young man’s death.

I like this book because of the little things: Isabel's memory of walking along an Edinburgh street with her father and running into two of Scotland's great poets; a performance of the Really Terrible Orchestra (to which Mr. Smith belongs in real life); and the way Edinburgh is described, as "a city of dark nights and candlelight, and intellect."

In the second book, Friends, Lovers, Chocolate (2005), Cat asks Isabel to run the delicatessen for her while she attends a friend’s wedding in Italy. While filling in for Cat, Isabel gets to know Ian, one of the regular customers, who claims to have had some strange visions since receiving a heart transplant. Ian doesn’t know who the donor was or what the visions might mean, and Isabel tries to find out. All the novels are rich with images and (very, very dry) humor, but this one, it seems to me, is the richest. I love the little throwaway joke about philosophers in Edinburgh delicatessens, the anecdote about German professors, and the beautiful final scene. One thing this series does have in common with the Botswana series is its gentleness; like the world of Precious Ramotswe, the world of Isabel Dalhousie is filled with friendship, love, and the enjoyment of simple things.

In the third book, The Right Attitude to Rain (2006), Isabel pokes her nose into the relationship between a wealthy man from Texas and his younger fiancée. Almost as a parallel, Isabel’s half-acknowledged feelings for Jamie finally come to something, and she begins a relationship with the much younger man. Mr. Smith likes to quote W.H. Auden in this series; as a sort of running theme, in all of the books he alludes to the poem "Heavy Date." In this book Isabel reflects on a line from "The More Loving One," another Auden poem: "Let the more loving one be me. And it is."

By the fourth book, The Careful Use of Compliments (2007), Isabel has become a mother. In between feedings, baths, and diaper changes, she investigates a possible art fraud. I love the anecdote about a well-mannered Scottish minister; the quote from a Norman MacCaig poem about sleeper trains; and the joke, so dry that I missed it the first time, about a very small square of cheese. And I love what Mr. Smith says about moral crusaders: "it was one thing to think such things, another thing to tell people what one thought." On a more somber note, Mr. Smith offers thoughts on the morality of boundary controls and on the feelings of men about to go off to war.

Many readers dislike Isabel Dalhousie, probably because she can be shortsighted, unreasonable, and judgmental. I know that Mr. Smith believes people should be judgmental, as a character in his 44 Scotland Street series says, "when there is something to be judged." Isabel takes it too far, though, constantly jumping to conclusions about people and often ending up seriously mistaken. And I suppose it's hard to buy the reason she involves herself in these investigations to begin with. Sometimes she insinuates herself into other people's affairs because she feels morally bound to help them; most of the time she’s just curious. She's a lot of fun to follow around, though, and in the end she always means well. Besides, even when she's being terribly flawed, she creates some satisfying moments, as in Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, when by asking an extremely gauche question, she puts a condescending woman in her place.

A fifth book, The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday, is coming out this year. I’ve already pre-ordered it on Amazon; I can’t wait!