I’m finding that in between our efforts at remodelling our new house I have plenty of time to read. I’ve got plenty of time to write, too, but I can’t seem to get my head into that space just yet. Not completely, anyway – although there are urges every now and then. It’ll happen in due course.
For now I’ve been re-reading old favourites like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Some of them I read thirty or more years ago, so it’s interesting what I think of them now. They’re just as entertaining, but I notice some things like inconsistencies in events and characters because I know so much about them (having read subsequent books).
I’ve also re-read a few Asimov books – notably The Robots of Dawn, where an Earth detective is sent to the planet Aurora to investigate the ‘murder’ of one of the new humanoid robots. That was interesting because in his last years Asimov worked at combining his Robots books with the narrative in his famous Foundation series. I’d always thought that was a bridge too far but in fact the germs of Psychohistory, which underpins the Foundation trilogy, is in The Robots of Dawn.
Here’s the blurb:
Isaac Asimov’s Robot series – from the iconic collection I, Robot to four classic novels – contains some of the most influential works in the history of science fiction. Establishing and testing the Three Laws of Robotics, they continue to shape the understanding and design of artificial intelligence to this day.
On Aurora, the first and greatest of the Spacer planets, Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw investigate yet another seemingly impossible crime – this time, a roboticide.
Someone has destroyed the positronic mind of R. Jander Panell, a humanoid twin to Daneel. His creator, the master roboticist Han Fastolfe, denies all involvement. So does Gladia Delmarre, the robot’s owner. And lover.
Working in the heart of Spacer politics and civilisation, Baley and Daneel soon realise that their decisions will have profound consequences not only on relations between Earth and the Outer Worlds, but on mankind’s place in the galaxy.
Writing styles have changed since Asimov wrote this book and here and there it felt a bit pedestrian and dated. But the tribulations of Earthman Baley as he copes with the very, very different conditions on Aurora is just as interesting as it was when I first read the book.
I did venture on to some new to me books. One was The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah. It stars none other than Hercule Poirot. I assume Hannah obtained permission from Agatha Christie’s estate to write several novels starring our favourite Belgian sleuth.
Here’s the blurb:
“I’m a dead woman, or I shall be soon . . .”
Hercule Poirot’s quiet supper in a London coffeehouse is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. Though terrified, she begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done. Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a London Hotel have been murdered, and a monogrammed cufflink has been placed in each one’s mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman? While Poirot struggles to put together the bizarre pieces of the puzzle, the murderer prepares another hotel bedroom for a fourth victim.
Poirot assists Inspector Catchpool to solve the baffling case. Catchpool is the narrator and not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I read the whole book, which is something I don’t always do, life being too short to read stories that don’t hold my interest. And while it was entertaining enough, I wasn’t entirely convinced by the way Poirot was drawn. To me he seemed overly abrasive. In Agatha Christie’s stories Poirot often dealt with Scotland Yard’s Inspector Japp, but always as an advisor (knowing his place as a private detective) but in this book he takes over Catchpool’s case. (And Catchpool’s a bit dense.)
It was an okay read, but I didn’t rush to buy any of the other books in the series.
In sharp contrast, as soon as I’d finished Clare Chase’s Murder on the Marshes I immediately bought the next three books.
Here’s the blurb
The sun rises on a lush stone courtyard, where birds sing and ferns shade an ancient, burbling fountain. But in the fountain’s murky depths, a young woman’s body grows cold…
Samantha Seabrook – an ambitious young woman with a chequered past – is found drowned in the ornamental fountain of a locked Cambridge courtyard. The only clue is an antique silver chain wound tightly around her throat.
It’s local reporter Tara Thorpe’s job to discover what happened to Miss Seabrook – but the case becomes personal when she learns that Samantha had been receiving threatening messages… rather like the one that landed on the doorstep of Tara’s cottage the night the woman died.
Together with Detective Inspector Garstin Blake, Tara follows a lead that takes her to the deep and watery fens on the outskirts of the city. But there’s something Tara can’t quite admit to Blake about her past – and it could make all the difference to whether they crack the case before the killer strikes again.
The books are set in Cambridge, England, and the surrounding flat, marshy fen country that was settled by Dutch refugees escaping religious persecution in the sixteenth century. (That’s irrelevant to the book but it’s interesting because the landscape features canals and windmills such as you’d find in the Netherlands).
Getting back to the story… For me it was a real page turner. There are several threads to the plot – Tara Thorpe and Garstin Blake both have complicated backstories that affect the way they tackle the case. The university is part of the backdrop, of course, as are the students and academics. I admired the way Chase wove her story together, piquing my interest in one thread then crossing to another.
By the time I finished the book I cared about Tara and about Blake and that was part of the reason I quickly bought the other novels.
By the way, I found the first book via my weekly BookBub offers. If you’re not on their mailing list and you’re a keen reader, do join. It will be worth your while.
And while I have your attention, have you acquired your copy of Pets in Space 9 yet? It’s full of fascinating pets and wonderful stories – including one of mine.
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