I have been on a light detective novel binge lately, reading the four Christie novels in this omnibus, which are all from the 1920's and do not feature the irritating Hercule Poirot. She is closer to the type of writing Margery Allingham, whom I like a lot more, did in these novels than in her later works. She also has a turn for more interesting characters, and for humour, than later on. I found the diary extracts in The Man in the Brown Suit definitely amusing.
As was fairly common in detective novels of the era, there are lots of criminal masterminds and events of national & international significance. I've read people saying detective novels show how concerns have changed each decade reflecting what people were concerned about, but I'm not so sure. These days people saving the nation/world and defeating the great criminal mastermind/dark lord are rarely found in straight detective novels, but only because they have migrated to thrillers and fantasy.
I have also read 2 Patricia Wentworths, The Chinese Shawl and Through The Wall. All this has been in between slowly reading an exhausting science fiction novel about the fast moving future, which I will finish eventually. It has been a pleasure to go between it and the slower moving past, where a girl terrifies her male passengers by driving at 50 miles an hour, and people spend several days on a train and a week or two on a liner.
Omnibus first published 2006; The Secret Adversary first published 1922, The Man in the Brown Suit 1924, The Secret of Chimneys 1925 & The Seven Dials Mystery 1929.
No comments:
Post a Comment