M. C. Beaton. Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam (2000)

     M. C. Beaton. Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam (2000) Beaton is the author of the Hamish McBeth series, so I expected some wit and farce, but this is a perfunctory potboiler. The fairies of the title are mentioned a few times, but have no bearing on the plot, which involves the murder of a wannabe squire by his wife. Agatha has rented a cottage in the Norfolk village of Fryfam to get away from James Lacey, a cold fish of a man with whom she is desperately in love (or lust). Her friend Charles comes down to help her out, but she doesn’t recognise his good qualities compared to James. Nevertheless, the two of them solve the riddle, there is a brief moment of lethal danger, and everything ends more or less happily. The book is clearly part of a series whose connecting thread is Agatha’s love life, but that’s treated as superficially as the crime story. Mildly amusing, if you let your attention wander a bit. Not nearly as good as the Hamish books. ** (2003)

Stefan Zweig. The World of Yesterday (1943)

     Stefan Zweig. The World of Yesterday (1943) I picked this up at a yard sale, and have read the preface, chapter 1 and parts of chapter 2. Chapter 1 is an interesting survey of Viennese life around the turn of the century, when the “better classes” of the Hapsburg Empire (and indeed all of Europe) were enjoying the last few decades of a secure and pleasant life. That Zweig seems oblivious to the actual conditions of the working classes that supported this petit-bourgeois lifestyle (one that was also enjoyed by the aristocracy, actually) is symptomatic: he loves grand generalisations, which no doubt express his impressions accurately, but don’t tell us much about what was really happening.
     For what was happening was of course the working out of ideas that would cause revolutions and the overthrow of the old order. Europe sleepwalked into the First World War, and Zweig seems unable to accept the fact that the ideals that he espouses (centred around personal freedom) were largely irrelevant to these events. I’ve not read any of his other work – he seems to have had a small reputation as a historian of ideas and literature – and I probably won’t. I may read a few more pages of this work, but there are other books I want to read first.
     Zweig’s talent seems to consist mostly of making accepted platitudes sound profound, which was no doubt a comfort to his readers. His childhood reminiscences have some value as a record of the way life felt before the First World War, but the absence of concrete details unfortunately robs them of real interest. One has to have some prior knowledge in order to understand Zweig’s generalities, which is always a bad sign. * (2003)

James Churchward. The Lost Continent of Mu (1959)

     James Churchward. The Lost Continent of Mu (1959, but published earlier) Churchward is a crank. He believes that there was a continent in the Pacific Ocean that sank some 20,000 years ago, and he jackdaws facts from all over to support this thesis, as well as inventing all kinds of “explanations” to account for the phenomena for which he has no facts. Wonderfully silly stuff, but I fear (after a google on the title) that there are lots of people who believe it. A goldmine for writers of fantasy.
     Churchward also believes in reincarnation, the special creation of humanity (with a soul, of course, which is the only “real life” on Earth), planes of existence, and the superiority of the white race. Besides reincarnation, he also believes that all modern religions are corruptions of the original, pure religion of mankind by a scoundrelly caste of priests who want to enslave people. And so on.
     There is no clear line of argument, but much assertion of “incontrovertible” facts as conclusions. He reproduces what he claims are “glyphs” and “vignettes” from old clay tablets and stone sculptures. These, he says, are really a form of writing, and guess who knows how to read them? As I said, wonderfully silly. It belongs with the class of writings about Atlantis (which Churchward mentions in passing as a colony of Mu) and The Chariots of the Gods. I can see the attraction of such pseudo-archeology, but it's depressing to think that so many people feel the need to believe it. * (2003)

Edited 2026-05-26

Lillian O’Donnell. A Wreath for the Bride (1990)

     Lillian O’Donnell. A Wreath for the Bride (1990) A romance built around a mystery. Three women are killed shortly after or before their weddings, so their husbands are the prime suspects. But Gwenn Ramadge, going on nothing more than a vague hunch, connects the three murders and unmasks the murderer. Along the way she meets Her Man, a pleasant cop by name of Len Sackler. The style is typically romantic, with constant references to clothes and hair, and vague gestures in the direction of police procedural, supported by copious use of technical terms when they aren’t needed. The plot almost falls flat, some essential clues are deliberately withheld, and there are a few careless mistakes. I won’t be reading another by this writer. *½ (2003)

David Cecil. A Portrait of Jane Austen (1978)

     David Cecil. A Portrait of Jane Austen (1978) A charming introduction to Jane Austen’s life for anyone who has fallen under her spell. Cecil certainly has, for he finds practically no warts at all on the amiable Jane. He contends that Austen found her fulfilment as an artist, and if he feels he has to defend comedy generally and hers in particular against the charge of lack of seriousness, that merely reflects the lingering influence of Leavisite stupidity. Leavis explicitly renounced his chapel faith and upbringing, presenting himself as a modern man, but could never escape its suspicion of the imagination and its playfulness. He has had a pernicious effect on a whole generation of scholar-critics.
     The illustrations support the text, especially since many of them show watercolours and drawings made by the Austens, who seem to have been not only a very loving but also a very accomplished family. The maps date from the eighteenth or early nineteenth century.
     The Austen family sounds almost too good to be true; but then we have limited documents on which to base any judgments, as Cassandra destroyed a large part of her correspondence with Jane. Cecil, bless his adulatory heart, thinks the missing letters deal mostly with deeper and more personal feelings, the kind that the Austens (and their class generally) did not exhibit in public and rarely in private; but I think that Jane’s “realism” gave rise to rather harsher judgments of friends and relations than Cassandra was willing to leave as a memorial to her much-loved sister.
     Still, the portrait of Jane Austen that emerges has the ring of truth, largely because Cecil is careful to place her in her time and culture, a time and culture that he presents with admirable thoroughness heightened by an equally admirable conciseness. I enjoyed this book, and now want to read all Austen’s novels, something I have promised myself I would do in the past, but never with real conviction. Some serious printing errors mar the book a little. ***½ (2003)

Agatha Christie. Peril at End House (1932)

     Agatha Christie. Peril at End House (1932) Poirot is, for once, misled by the murderer, but in the end he sees things the right way round and Maggie Buckley’s killer is unmasked.
     Drugs, the frivolous life, elegant hotels, a long low red car, fireworks, and mysterious strangers all figure in this book, in which Christie drops heavy hints that she is about to finish off Poirot. He is supposedly retired, and Japp is near retirement. Hastings has returned from the Argentine, but is as dense and as easily misled by appearances as ever.
     A pleasant confection, even though we see the murderer from a long way off. The typical gathering of the suspects is handled better than in most of the Christies, although she as usual ignores proper police procedure throughout; of necessity, since otherwise Poirot would have nothing to do. This copy is a coverless Crime Club edition, fifth impression, from The New Popular Lending Library of Bertles Drug Store in Camrose, Alberta. I see by the date that I bought it in 1973, must have been in a yard sale. Have no idea where the cover went. **-½ (2003)

Emma Lathen, Emma Going for the Gold (1981)

     Emma Lathen, Emma Going for the Gold (1981) The setting is Lake Placid, the crime is murder. John Thatcher must investigate the problem of a half million dollar scam involving fake Eurochecks. It turns out the two crimes are related, and after an attempted second murder is barely averted, Thatcher gets to explain how the deeds were done, and how he finally solved the puzzle. Lathen is a good crime writer. “She” (it’s actually a twosome) creates characters just believable enough to draw one into their lives, the plotting is brisk and clear, and the red herrings are as carefully placed as the real clues. The addition of social comedy and light satire makes for pleasant reading. **½ (2003)