Eric Wright. Death of a Hired Man (2001)

     Eric Wright. Death of a Hired Man (2001) The second Mel Pickett story. He’s now married to Charlotte (Wright’s time lines are wonky, they don’t match Buried in Stone, the first Pickett story), and they spend time in both Toronto and Larch River.
     A man who rented Pickett’s cabin for a nominal sum is found murdered. Pickett is convinced he himself was the intended victim. A strait-laced couple connected to the victim provides plausible red herrings, and a string of robberies divert the investigation. Pickett wants to ensure his property goes to his “granddaughter”, and proposes to adopt her father, his supposed son, who wants to meet him. Mel and Charlotte are still working out their relationship, a process nicely observed by Wright. All in all, a well done novel, engaging enough that I wish Wright had written more Mel Pickett stories. I’m still looking for the last Charlie Salter book. Wright’s books would make very nice TV series. *** (2010)

Grace Paley. The Little Disturbances of Man (1959)

     Grace Paley. The Little Disturbances of Man (1959) Paley’s first collection of short stories. She’s a master of impersonation. Her first person narratives are completely believable. They are single mothers, grifters, nice middle class girls and women and occasionally men, children trying to make sense of the adults around them, lonely men and women looking for love and unable to let down the defences that imprison them.
    The tales have the ring of truth: the Wikipedia entry says they are semi-autobiographical. I infer that Paley was a superbly accurate observer, the kind on whom nothing is lost, and had a phenomenal memory for detail. She also was able to imagine herself into someone else’s life, a rare gift. Most of us most of the time have trouble enough imagining ourselves in different circumstances.
     One consequence of Paley’s art is a willingness to suspend judgement. Someone once said that to know all is to forgive all. Paley’s stories go a long way to proving the truth of that saying. ****

Johnny English (2004)

     Johnny English (2004) [D; Peter Howitt. Rowan Atkinson, Natalie Imbruglia, John Malkovich] A satire on James Bond movies that is good in parts.  Pascal Sauvage, a descendant of the Plantagenets, steals the Crown Jewels and forces Elizabeth II to abdicate. Then he offers himself as King. Johnny English, newly minted MI5 agent, must stop this dastardly plot. He succeeds despite himself, of course. There are some very good bits, but they don’t jell into the kind of seamless absurd logic of, for example, the best of the Pink Panther movies. Or Laurel and Hardy, or Buster Keaton. Still, the movie gave us an enjoyable hour and a half. **

Hazel Holt. Mrs Malory and No Cure for Death (2005)

     Hazel Holt. Mrs Malory and No Cure for Death (2005) A chatty, light-weight mystery set in a west-country village near the Cornish coast. Widowed Sheila Malory lives a comfortable and busy life. Her gift for gossip helps the local constabulary (a DCI she knew when he was still a boy) find the perp. A doc with a mysterious past and an aloof manner is stabbed to death in his clinic office. Nicely done until the end. The solution, when it comes, is kinda lame, involving past deceptions and lies. It explains everything, but the psychology is pat, superficial, and includes facts that should have been alluded to throughout the book. Holt devised a too complicated plot, I think, with too many plausible suspects. Unsatisfying. I suspect that her connections in publishing (she was Barbara Pym’s advisor and biographer) eased publication of this third-rate book.
     This Signet paperback is published by Penguin Group: the cover design echoes the old penguin covers, which IMO is a cheat. This is nowhere near the standards of those venerable (and now disintegrating) volumes. * (2010)

Stella Margetson. Leisure and Pleasure in the Nineteenth Century (1969)

     Stella Margetson. Leisure and Pleasure in the Nineteenth Century (1969) I was about to put this book in a box destined for U. Vic’s book sale when I started leafing through it. Then I read it. A pleasure to read, filled with interesting anecdotes that taken together trace the history denoted on the title, from the easy liberty (and licentiousness) of the Regency through the narrowing of moral strictures during Victoria’s long widowhood (measured among other things by the tightening of corsets and increased layering of underclothes), to the loosening of behaviour (and clothes) in the last years of her reign and the ascendancy of the Edwardians. Margetson’s style is easy and straightforward. She’s especially good at linking what are in fact disparate stories. The only serious fault is that there are not nearly enough pictures. I won’t keep it, but I’m glad I read it. ** (2010)

Eric Wright. Buried in Stone (1997)

      Eric Wright. Buried in Stone (1997) Offered as the first Mel Pickett story, it’s really the second, as we first met Mel in A Fine Italian Hand, in which he helped Charlie Salter. Retired to Larch River, about three hours drive north of Toronto, Mel is nice guy, and much shrewder than his avuncular, vaguely rural externals suggest. But he can’t avoid being drawn into the case of a local thug’s murder. His legwork includes a welcome train ride to Winnipeg and drive to Kenora, where he finds proof of a crucial falsification of dates. The upshot is that Lyman Caxton, the local police chief, loses his woman, who has helped hide the thug (her brother) from the law. Pickett ends up about to marry Charlotte Mercer, the waitress/cook at the local café, with whom he has been spending pleasant Sunday afternoons in bed and at table.
     All in all, a satisfying read; the crime and its solution provide an excuse for a portrait of rural Ontario that has the ring of truth despite its somewhat sentimental point of view. The byplay between the OPP, Mel, and Caxton is nicely done: the combination of mutual respect, wariness of treading on foreign turf, and professional procedure feels right. **½ (2010)

Eric Wright. Death by Degrees (1993)

     Eric Wright. Death by Degrees (1993) Salter’s father suffers a stroke, and partly to distract himself from his anxieties, and partly to delay the boredom of writing a report on gambling, Salter takes on a case of poison-pen letters implying that the death of a recently elected college dean is murder, and not the side effect of a botched robbery. Salter’s investigation turns up a nasty mess of campus politics, which suggests there may have been a murder. Which it was.

     Wright’s dissection of academia, though set in a mere technical college, is clear-eyed and somewhat gentler than I would expect (he was a teacher at Ryerson for many years). He has a knack for quick character sketches that leave us with the impression of more than what was shown to us. Salter’s on-going family soap opera is dealt with a little more thoroughly than in other books. His relationship with his father is not resolved into sweetness and forgiving delight, but remains touchy and mutually armoured to the end (he will go home to be tended by May, his common-law wife). Annie and Charlie do what they have to do, because the old man is family; Charlie eventually can forgive himself for not having the kind of mutually affectionate relationship with his father that Seth has with his grandfather. A good read. *** (2010)