John Mortimer. Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders (2004)

    John Mortimer. Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders (2004) At last we have the authoritative and complete account of the case that made Rumpole’s reputation, consolidated his preference for defending criminals, and resulted in his marriage to Hilda, daughter of the Head of Chambers, and the leader in the case. The prisoner sacks this eminent example of the finest traditions of the bar, and insists on Rumpole defending him.
     The plot is simple enough: the son of a supposed war hero is accused of the murders, but Rumpole unearths evidence that suggests not only that the dead man and his comrade were traitors but were also murderers. The likely executioner of this unpleasant pair disappears, conveniently for Mortimer, who is thus relieved of having to tie up that loose end. A few minor kerfuffles in chambers also yield to Rumpole’s discreet intervention. It looks like this is Rumpole’s last appearance, since it answers the all-important question of why he married Hilda: because she told him to. But there are signs of some weariness in Mortimer’s writing; the book is as clear as ever, but it lacks the edge and crackle that we expect of Rumpole, that self described hack, champion of justice in the face of the awful machinery of the law. **½ (2007)

Richard J. Cook. Super power Steam Locomotives (1966)

     Richard J. Cook. Super power Steam Locomotives (1966) A handsome book, including a summary history of Lima Locomotives, followed by a reproduction of one its catalogues, followed by a photo section showing first the building of a steam locomotive, and then pictures of the engines at work. Like most books produced by fans who lack academic training in how to present information, it’s somewhat of a hodgepodge, and lacks such useful apparatus as a table of contents and an index. This severely reduces the book’s usefulness, not entirely offset by the high quality of the printing. I bought this book in 1967 or 68, when there were very few books about steam engines or railroad subjects. The photos are technically very good, but in most there isn’t enough visual context, such as landscape, trackside buildings, etc, to locate the engines. They could be anywhere. Lima designed its locomotives to a house style that the railroads could not disguise with options such the placement of feedwater heaters and airpumps, so that the engines become oddly anonymous. ** (2007)

Edwin P. Alexander. American Locomotives ... 1900-1950 (1950

     Edwin P. Alexander. American Locomotives ... 1900-1950 (1950; reprint by Bonanza Books n.d.) A catalogue raisonné of steam locomotives built between the dates given. Photo and drawing of each, with technical data and a historical note. Alexander claims every locomotive is significant in some way, so his notes are rather repetitive. A good reference if you happen to need some data about one of the locos. Since they are in chronological order, the absence of an index by type, builder, etc,  is inexplicable. Printing quality is above average for Bonanza Books, who seem to have specialised in muddy photo-reproduction of popular books. * (2007)

Garrison Keillor. ME by Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente (1999)

     Garrison Keillor. ME by Jimmy (Big Boy) Valente (1999) Keillor’s satire written as a comment on the election of Jesse Ventura as governor of Minnesota. Very mild, actually, and in places the narrative voice seems more Keillor’s than Valente’s. I know nothing of Ventura’s career as a wrestler, nor of his career as governor, He apparently did no lasting harm, if he did any. As a satire on TV, wrestling, the gullibility of the semi-schooled public, conservatives, liberals, and assorted riffraff, it works reasonably well. But Keillor lacks the satirist’s rage. He is more bemused than angered by the follies and vices of his fellow citizens. A decent read, not a great one. ** (2007)

Brian Aldiss, ed. Galactic Empires: Volume two (1976)

     Brian Aldiss, ed. Galactic Empires: Volume two (1976) Aldiss has assembled a good collection of the future history genre of SF, ranging from the swashbuckling space opera to the most subtle of mathematico-philosophical speculations. In all of them some empire-like polity is imagined, and plot points hinge as much on the structure of that polity as on the characters. One of Aldiss’s strengths is that he chooses stories with strong though not always complex characterisation, so that the stories are less thesis-driven than most SF. That makes these stories engaging; that, and the archetypal elements of which they’re built, as Aldiss recognises and points out. It’s been a while since I binged on SF. This book provided several hours of entertaining and thought-provoking reading. A few stories are shaggy jokes, but most are more serious (though not solemn) explorations of the notions of power and government.
     The assumption underlying all the stories is that the larger the society, the more authoritarian it will be. And they all take for granted that power tends to corrupt, everyone except the noble hero, that is. In many, stagnation is seen as an inevitable byproduct of the stability of a powerful empire, and the barbarian invasions as a welcome and necessary revitalisation of the culture. Several stories assume that humanity’s striving for something beyond itself will be unique in the galaxy, a dubious assumption. The treatment of gender and sex tends to be simplistic and very much of the time in which the stories were written, with men taking leading roles, and even powerful women tending to melt into sex kittens as soon as the hero looks at them with lustful intention. No wonder that women generally haven’t liked SF. There are also several stories with simplistic notions of mind, the kind of notions that enable telepathy and the insertion of alien egos into human brains.
     But most stories deal with the human (and alien) costs of the changes and conflicts that are an inevitable byproduct of government. Thoreau’s implicit idea that eventually, perhaps, humans would need no government, is emphatically denied here. To be intelligent and to live in societies means to govern and be governed, to dominate and to resist domination. The result is that the most common tone is elegiac and tragic, for even the most advanced race must eventually face its own extinction.. The comic spirit shows up mostly as satire, equating humans with vermin, for example.
     All in all, the book is worth keeping. ** (2007)

Best of the West: The Railroaders (1986)

     B. Pronzini & M. Greenberg. Best of the West: The Railroaders (1986) 5th in a series of stories culled from the pulps. Well-done examples of the short story as mass entertainment, with clear plotting, plain but effective styles, and often sentimental themes. The railroading is authentic, insofar as I can judge it, and the Western atmosphere conforms to the rules of the genre. Most of these stories are Westerns with a railroad motif or setting, not railroading stories as such. In the days before TV, pulp fiction helped people while away their free time, and I’m sure did much good, considering their unequivocal support of the mores of melodrama: the right will win out, the evildoers will get their just desserts, and the girl will marry the one who is worthy of her. ** (2007)

W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and Death in Stanley Street (1974)

     

W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and Death in Stanley Street (1974) A prostitute’s death leads Wycliffe to more or less crooked real estate deals, drug running, and the effects of naivete on an impressionable young man. Family secrets and the desire for respectability as usual interfere and delay the investigation, the solution satisfies, and ambience of the setting and tale keep us believing in this version of Cornish seaside towns. Burley’s talent is atmosphere and character. He’s also very good at sketching the details of police procedure thoroughly enough that we get the illusion of completeness, no mean feat when one considers how much of police work is the deadly dull gathering and sifting of irrelevant details. An early Wycliffe, before Kersy and Lucy Lane. A good read. **½

Louis L’Amour. The Man Called Noon (1970)

Louis L’Amour. The Man Called Noon (1970) Ruble Noon wakes up amnesic, and despite himself becomes re-entangled in a crooked attempt to steal the gold on the Davidge spread. All’s well that ends well: he recovers his self, finds a good woman in Fan Davidge, retrieves the gold, and reduces the number of baddies. A typical L’Amour: well plotted, enough variation on the stereotypes to make the characters interesting, descriptions of setting that display his knack for putting you right there in the scene, straightforward tale-telling that maintains suspense, good dialogue, and so on. I’ve kept this one because some of the action takes place on trains. A very good entertainment of its type. Many people have tried to emulate L’Amour’s Westerns, but few have come close to succeeding. ***

W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and the Guilt Edged Alibi (1971)

    W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and the Guilt Edged Alibi (1971) An unpleasant woman’s corpse dragged up by a cable-ferry’s chain, another murder, and a suicide; not a large body count. Wycliffe’s thinking meanders, his vague impressions coalesce as he discovers the family secrets that prompted the deaths.  Like most of Burley’s books, more of a meditation on crime than a strictly police procedural mystery. Character as always counts for more than technical detail. People’s unwillingness to reveal disreputable facts gets in the way, but Wycliffe’s talent for waiting in silence unnerves the suspects (and others) so that they talk just to fill up space. I like this series, partly because the TV shows based on it were so well done. Burley has the knack of hinting at the back stories of the secondary characters, so that the world of these tales seems richer than it is. **½

Will Stanton Once Upon A Time Is Enough (1969)

     Will Stanton Once Upon A Time Is Enough (1969) Stanton takes a literal and realistic view of some familiar fairy tales. E.g., Hansel and Gretel are grilled by a prosecutor who wants to convict them of the maliciously planned murder of a sweet little old lady. Bluebeard occasions a riff on Can This Marriage Be Saved? And so on. Well done, in a manner that, alas, may seem too bland for many readers these days. It’s Stanton’s deadpan assumption of normalcy that carries the satire. Victoria Chess’s drawings, reminiscent of Edward Gorey, help out. If you find this book at a yard sale somewhere, buy it. It’s a keeper. ***

Dicey Deere. The Irish Manor House Murder (2000)

     Dicey Deere. The Irish Manor House Murder (2000) Dr Ashenden, respected surgeon, dies when his horse throws him. The horse dies, too. A few days earlier, his granddaughter tried to ride him down, an event witnessed by Torrey Tunet and the local constable. A piece of knitting needle found in the horse’s rump implies murder. Torrey, the series hero, interferes of course, and the page-turner gallops along until the final double twist reveals the true murderer. Dr Ashenden was a psychopath, so justice of a sort has been done. The book is a well-done product of its kind: short (sometimes very short) chapters, each dealing with one scene, a format that just begs for conversion to the screen. This is the 2nd of a series; I didn’t search online to find out if there were any more. Pleasant enough time waster. **

Marvelous Pilgrims (Play)

     Stewart Lemoine, Marvelous Pilgrims. At the Walterdale Playhouse. Directed by Stewart Lemoine. A low-key fairy tale about magical waters, a witch that tries to undo a curse, a personality swap, and of course a love story. Staged using four areas to represent four locales, supposedly set in 1936, but the costumes were more 1906.
     The play’s a fantasy, and such a play succeeds or fails by moving us along briskly so that we accept its premises. The timing of entries and exits, of the switching between locales, and of course the dialogue, must be sharp and precise, and too often it wasn’t so, especially at the crucial plot points of personality swap (which doesn’t have the desired effect and so must be undone before the play is properly done). The script was good enough to engage my interest, though it could have been stretched to explore questions of personality, and/or of the ethics of interfering in other people’s lives, and such. I think the story would have borne the additional weight. Music propelled the story effectively, unusually so in my experience, for playwrights tend to use it to create a mood when the words fail to do so. Here, it was used operatically, to add depth to character and to point the plot. I wouldn’t have minded more music. The overall tone was light, here and there verging on farce. The love story was what it should be: the right people fell in love.
     But the magic hinted at more serious themes: Swapping personalities has heavy implications, and sticking to the merely humorous ones I think was a mistake. Good theatre (which this was) can take us anywhere. In some ways, the play felt unfinished, as if workshopping had stopped because it was time to produce the play. Nevertheless, overall it was a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half. **½