M. Allen Gibson. Train Time (1973)

     M. Allen Gibson. Train Time (1973) An odd but pleasant little book of reminiscences about the trains in Wolfville, N. S., where Gibson grew up and went to school. The Dominion Atlantic Railway serviced the town, and Gibson gives us a neat account of the trains and some of the locomotives he saw. The style is a little formal and self-consciously literary. Gibson obviously likes trains and people. Photographs appear on alternate pages, but there’s no attempt to arrange them to link to the text they face.
     Gibson was a Baptist minister in Chester, N. S. and was known locally for his columns in The Chronicle Herald of Halifax. I googled him, and found four titles listed in the N. S. archives. There was no other hit. Then I went to the Chronicle Herald site, and searched, found pages of references. Apparently, one has to pay to read the articles, so I didn’t see any, but the headlines indicate a well-known and well-respected, decent man. ** (2008)

Sue Grafton. I is for Innocent (1993)

     Sue Grafton. I is for Innocent (1993) Interesting, how a book written a mere 15 years ago seems like historical fiction: Kinsey doesn’t have a cell phone, she uses public phones. Few offices have computers. No DNA analysis to place or exclude a suspect. But the characterisation is smooth and slick as usual, and the clues are fairly planted.
     Kinsey picks up where a dead former colleague left off in the preparation of a wrongful death suit. The perp was acquitted of the criminal charge, and for a time it seems he may be innocent. But Kinsey finds the one little fact that unravels his alibi, confirms that her dead colleague was murdered, and places her in harm’s way, again. The formulaic standoff with the perp is getting to be tiresome. The soapy subplots that link the books are nicely handled, and Kinsey’s generally breezy and cheerful personality keeps us engaged. **½ (2008) The book is now 20 years old, and the setting seems farther back than that.

Anne Perry. Brunswick Gardens (1998)

     Anne Perry. Brunswick Gardens (1998) #18 in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series. They have been married ten years, have two children and a very happy married life. An apparent murder at Brunswick Gardens brings Dominic Corde (brother-in-law, who figured in the first book) back into their lives. The case has few facts (Perry withholds most of them until the very end), and depends on psychology for its solution. But the psychology doesn’t fit. Charlotte’s knowledge of the classics provides the key that puts certain love letters in a new light, and by snooping discovers evidence of an obsessive love that proves to be the motive for disguising an accident as a murder and eventually committing an actual murder.
     The main suspects are all clergy. This gives Perry an opportunity to sketch the theological and spiritual effects of Darwin’s theory, among other things. Late-Victorian feminism also figures in the plot. Well done, good narrative pace, a bit too much telling rather than showing, and an old-fashioned omniscient narrator make for a pleasant entertainment. An afterpiece indicates that the first book in the series was made into a TV pilot, but I’ve not seen any evidence of a series.
     PS: I went to Perry’s website, worth a look. She helped her friend kill her mother, but being only 15 at the time, she wasn’t hanged. An interview on YouTube indicated that she has thought hard about her crime and guilt, which may explain the moral philosophising in her books. There was no mention of the Cater Street movie. ** (2008)

John F. Anderson. The Railway Book (1963)

     John F. Anderson. The Railway Book (1963) It’s difficult to decide the target audience for this book. Its repeated references to “train spotters”, its tone and style, and the obvious assumptions of ignorance, indicate children and youth, but the lack of anything other than a handful of line illustrations suggest an older audience. It’s essentially an annotated list of facts, and from that standpoint it’s useful. But in some areas, it provides exclusively UK facts, and in others, it ranges across the globe. The author is not a professional writer, and his work should have been edited for focus, arrangement, and style. Inside this rather odd little book is a real book waiting to be revealed. * (2008)

Shirley Rousseau Murphy. Cat on the Edge (1996)

     Shirley Rousseau Murphy. Cat on the Edge (1996) I didn’t finish this book. The premise is interesting: a cat that has witnessed murder develops the ability to not only understand human speech, but also to speak and read (but he does have trouble with alphabetic sequence). I like cats, so this premise promised entertainment. But at the quarter mark, we are still reading set up and back story. This leisurely pace seems intended to pile on enough detail to make the story believable, but its effect is the opposite. In books as in movies, believability is increased by narrative speed and by omission of pesky details, the kind that prompt questions such as How does the cat get the books down from the shelf? Realistic narratives assume readers’ background knowledge; a fantasy must do the same. Tell the story as if it were the most natural thing in the world; don’t dwell on the incredible or implausible, and thereby raise people’s doubts. So while the first dozen-odd pages engaged me, by page 70 I didn’t care anymore. (2008)

Kay Stewart & Chris Bullock. A Deadly Little List (2006)

     Kay Stewart & Chris Bullock. A Deadly Little List (2006) Stewart and Bullock have concocted a nice little mystery, set on Saltspring Island. It’s not as edgy as one might like, with a few plotting troubles. There are two investigators, an RCMP constable and a theatre critic. Two murders and a near-third provide the gore and the plot motivation. They are of course tied together. The little list is the famous one from The Mikado, which figures as the social setting of the mystery. The producer/director of the play (an unpleasant character, obsessed with his vision of himself as a ground-breaking dramatic innovator) has rewritten it with local references, a common enough ploy. But his hints cut a little too close to the criminal truth, and one of his targets murders him. The first murder was an accident: the victim came across the drug-smuggling operation that the murderer was trying to hide.
      The police procedure is handled competently, but clearly at second hand, and drawn out as it is in real life, which tends to slow down the story, especially since every chapter is headed with a place, date and time. The clues and red herrings are fairly placed. The characterisation of the main character, Danutia Dranchuk, is a little formulaic, and whenever it gets close to her inner self, the narrators dance away. A similar skittishness shows up with Arthur Fairweather, the critic. Both these characters’ back stories influence their approach to the puzzle, but we’re given no more than a hint or two. The Saltspring setting is occasionally laboriously done, with careful enumeration of landmarks and businesses. But usually the evocation of the mood is pleasant and has the ring of truth.
     The story starts out blandly and slowly, despite the authors’ use of short chapters, each of which builds to a mild forward-pointing climax. Around the middle of the book, I was engaged enough to want to find out how it all turned out, as well as to see whether various hints about personal relationships would morph into full-blown if incomplete plots. But Stewart and Bullock apparently seem to want their story to be realistic in the mundane sense that most attraction, even if mutual, doesn’t develop into anything, usually not even into a first coffee or drink. Murder mysteries are a type of romance, so unrealistically quick development of attraction into emotional affairs if not physical ones is required. All in all, a pleasant, low-key entertainment. The last sentence points to further adventures of Constable Dranchuk, but whether we’ll see them or not depends I suppose on how well this book sells. ** (2008)

Alice Munro. Runaway (2004)

     Alice Munro. Runaway (2004) I find Munro difficult to read, not because she is a difficult writer, but because she engages the reader’s emotions so strongly. In most of her stories the protagonist ends up more or less resigned to her fate, a fate that she doesn’t deserve. There is a ruthlessness and implacability in Munro’s view of the world, in her awareness of the small shifts in circumstance that would have led to a happier outcome, her insight that the most significant choices are often made while hardly aware that one is making a choice, her cool presentation of those data about character that reveal self-delusion and moral cowardice. She shows us how small misunderstandings, need for love and acceptance, lack of confidence, and innocent ignorance of self and others, lead inexorably to disappointment. Not that her characters are morally perfect and pure: but their flaws are minor, the kind that in other writers lead to pathos rather than tragedy, to peace rather than resignation, to acceptance rather than endurance. Her stories draw me in, and leave me feeling sad. *** to **** (2008)

Howard Engel. The Cooperman Variations (2001)

 

    Howard Engel. The Cooperman Variations (2001) An old schoolfriend, now Head of Entertainment at NTC, hires Benny to be her bodyguard, as it seems someone has shot her friend by mistake. Cooperman makes friends with the Toronto police (he’s unusual in being a PI who likes and works with the police), beds his employer (for whom he had lusted in high school), and from time to time remembers Anna, who is gallivanting around Europe. The solution is of course a twist, for this is a mystery novel. Engel has mastered his genre and formula, and this is one of the better Coopermans. NTC is a thinly disguised Global TV, but I can’t tell which characters are Engel’s takes on their employees, and which are pure invention (if characters can ever be said to be pure invention). *** (2008)

W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin (1986)

     W. J. Burley. Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin (1986) The virgin in question is a schoolgirl who impresses with her portrayal of Mary in a Christmas pageant. Then she disappears. As Wycliffe is visiting in the neighbourhood, he gets the search in motion. Shortly afterwards the girl’s mother is found murdered. The usual long-buried family secrets prove to be the keys to the crimes, which Wycliffe solves with his usual combination of donkey work and intuition. Well done entertainment, but the TV series was IMO more effective. **½ (2008)

Howard Engel. A Victim Must be Found (1988)

     Howard Engel. A Victim Must be Found (1988) Pambos Kiriakis hires Cooperman to find a list of paintings loaned by a dead art dealer who was sloppy with his paperwork. In fact, Pambos wants Cooperman to sniff out theft and a possible murder, an aim that costs Pambos his life. One of the possible thieves (according to Pambos) hires Cooperman to finish the investigation, and Benny not only finds out the list was bogus, he ties it all up neatly for Chris Savas, his friend on the Niagara Regional Police force. He also meets Anne Abraham. **½. (2008)

Howard Engel. The Ransom Game (1981)

     Howard Engel. The Ransom Game (1981) In a bleak February, Benny Cooperman gets the job of finding a disappeared ex-con who knows where the $500K ransom money is stashed. A week and two corpses later, Cooperman has solved the case, which involves a few nasties in high places, ancient double crosses, and a dysfunctional family. As usual, Engel is good on Cooperman, less so on the other characters. His mild send-up of tough PI talk continues to amuse, but the puzzle is less than satisfactory; the final solution has not been fully clued, although the real villain has been signalled quite early on. Benny’s romance with Anne is proceeding, albeit slowly A good entertainment nevertheless. **½ (2008)

Colin Dexter. The Riddle of the Third Mile (1983)

    Colin Dexter. The Riddle of the Third Mile (1983) Another over-elaborate crime. There are five corpses, three murdered, one a suicide, and one dead of natural causes. The mess includes mistakes about past events, excessive ambition, academic feuds, a Soho nightclub, erotica, conspiracy to commit murder, University examinations, red herrings strewn about by the conspirators,  and  the usual bit players. Dexter’s trademark characterisation-by-tic is front and centre here, as is his schtick of anticipating events. “Little did he know...” that this would begin to wear down my patience. I mentally rewrote a couple of the short chapters omitting those foreshadowings, and felt a bit better.
     Still, by giving us the unriddling via Morse’s and Lewis’s peregrinations, false starts, discovery of small details, and sudden shifts of view, Dexter compels us to read on. The solution is, as already mentioned, too complicated by half. That the perpetrators won’t be brought to justice because they’re all dead is just another twist in an overly twisted tale. **