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Wednesday December 31, 2008
Books in December
- The Death of Dalziel by Reginald Hill
I love these books - and I used to love the TV series - until they started to deviate so substantially from the novels. I have no purist objection to additional stories written for TV (as in "Morse") but Ellie Pascoe and "Ivor" Novello were two of my favourite characters - played by really strong actresses - and they were just written out.
I was sad, as they left the door open in the script at one point to get back on track with Ellie - but then closed it again. Ivor was replaced for a while by "Harris" Tweed - which was a bit daft as they could have simply changed the actress, if that were what drove it, though I don't think a changeling would have worked for Ellie.
In this book - and increasingly - Ellie and Peter's relationship is really important to the novels, so once they removed her from the picture they have been forced to change the plots more and more. The disconnect happened at around the time of Arms and the Woman - again one of my favourites, being a lot about Ellie - and I can see it would have been very hard to portray this book on screen, at least hard to portray it within the straight police mystery genre into which the TV series falls. It, and this book, Death of Dalziel, have a surrealist or sci-fi element which is both humourous and witty/intellectual, as well as excellent writing - but (unsurprisingly) absent from the TV interpretation.
I should also say I admire Ellie for representing a class of woman all too often absent in mainstream drama. [Although increasingly common in mainstream "life" I think]. Namely, a strong intelligent middle class woman portrayed in a supporting role. Some might imagine that she appeals to me as a Bolshy feminist lefty - well she might - or she might not - but that's not it. She has her own life, and I do not think the substance of that life matters; it just matters that she has one. And she chooses to live it with Peter Pascoe and their daughter.
PS - you don't really think he's dead, do you? - The Secret Hangman by Peter Lovesey
Peter Lovesey is what I would call a traditional English crime writer - as Agatha Christie probably was, prior to her somewhat surprising rise to megastar status. His settings are ordinary contemporary situations, not 1930s period piece locked-room mysteries, but happily with the expected (unrealistic) high body count. In the books I have read, (The Circle and The House Sitter), he writes about police detectives rather than amateurs, even if the police are not necessarily the main players.
Having said that, his first books in the 1970s were the "Sergeant Cribb" series, which is set in Victorian London. Cribb is probably his best known character due to the 1980s TV series starring Alan Dobie. - All Fun and Games until Somebody Loses an Eye by Christopher Brookmyre
[Read by Cathleen McCarron]
This book seems to have had mixed reviews. It seems that Brookmyre fans have had expectations stemming from what they subjectively felt he was expressing in his previous books, rather than maybe what he really was expressing. Some readers put off reading this book owing to the apparently negative reviews, and were then pleasantly surprised when they finally read the book.
It is definitely not a very realistic book - at many levels - it involves a fictional international Bond-style organisation from the outset, and progresses through a middle-aged woman's wish fulfilment. I was a bit neutral after the first chapter, but it swiftly drew me in, and as usual his witty writing and plot digressions were a lot of fun.
Posted by Christina at 9:01 AM. Category: Books of the Month
