Work for Idle Hands: Books in July

Tuesday July 31, 2018

Leaving Those Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear [read by Julie Teal]
It's 1933. Usha Pramal has been murdered and her brother, newly arrived in England from India, asks Maisie to find out the truth about her death. It's an intriguing mystery. Usha seems to have been an altogether good woman about whom no-one says anything other than good. And yet her British employers - who brought her with them to England - appear to have dismissed her for no reason.
There are good period descriptions of the times - exploring an ayah's hostel for women in Usha'a position (ie brought to England and then dismissed with no income) which exploits its residents under a mask of Christian good works. And there is a lot about Maisie's personal dilemmas, which many faithful fans are beginning to find annoying; I think I find it less so in listening to the books as it's a bit like listening to an old friend unburdening herself. In fact I think the author has a problem here - she has an independent protagonist with a perfect "boyfriend", however, the relationship cannot stand still. If Maisie marries into the aristocracy, she will be totally prevented from continuing with any independent career especially one as bizarre as a detective bureau. So as things are, the two of them are living in a kind of limbo which is rather like an allegory of the larger picture, life between-the-wars.

Night of the Lightbringer by Peter Tremayne
[read by Caroline Lennon]
I never approached Sister Fidelma mysteries with enough respect I think, even though I enjoyed the first one I read (a very long time ago). This is the 28th novel and in order to give her more clout as an independent woman of her time (rather like Maisie in the previous book I guess) has long since ceased to be Sister and is now more reliant on her high rank and education. She is now married (to Edulf, a Saxon) and has a son. We are now in Ireland, AD 671, and the plot begins like many after it (from Midsummer Murders to the County Guides Sussex murder) with a body inside the unlit bonfire at a pagan festival....
I was always conscious of Fidelma being from Cashel but - shame on me and my lack of Geographical knowledge - I never knew or even questioned where Cashel was - especially as, in the couple of books I read, Fidelma travels very far from home. And even worse, it was only when I knitted some socks in a colourway named "Cashel" that I took the trouble to find out!

Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L Sayers [Dramatisation]
Another bedtime story for me.
Written in 1926, this is the second Wimsey story - and very dated even by the rather twee standards of the series. Lord Peter Wimsey's brother, the Duke of Denver, stands accused of murder and - rather arrogantly I think - seems to believe it won't come to anything despite being found with the body, plus having the usual means, motive, and opportunity. Wimsey leaves it all to the 11th hour including a transatlantic crossing by air to present the evidence to save his brother.
Of passing interest to me was the fact that a copy of Clouds of Witness was one of the books modified* by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell in their adulterations of library books from the Islington and Hampstead libraries in the early 1960s. [* for which - in this case altering the blurb on the dust jacket describing the plot - they were sentenced to a draconian 6 months in prison, and yet today regarded as guerilla-art-pranks and proudly displayed in a gallery of the library...!]

Posted by Christina at 2:57 PM. Category: Books of the Month