Miss Marple Returns in Lucy Foley’s Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel
The guests at a hotel in the Alps are temporarily cut off from the rest of the world; murder and mayhem ensue. Sound familiar? It’s the plot of an Agatha Christie short story, “The Erymanthian Boar” (from the mythology-themed The Labour of Hercules), in which Poirot finds himself stranded with a motley crew of fellow…
Antonia Fraser’s Quiet as a Nun
Lady Antonia Fraser turned 94 yesterday, and she has lived an extraordinary life. Her Jemima Shore mysteries are but a small part of her prodigious literary output, which also includes several volumes of poetry and a set of excellent biographies, perhaps most famously her 1969 Mary Queen of Scots, which made a deep impression on…
P.D. James’s A Certain Justice and Gail Bowen’s Verdict in Blood
P.D. James’s A Certain Justice, her tenth novel, appeared in 1997; Canadian writer Gail Bowen’s sixth novel, Verdict in Blood, came out in 1998. They’re among the best novels by each author, and both deal with women and the practice of law in exceptionally thoughtful ways. Venetia Aldridge, the barrister and murder victim in A…
Agatha Christie All Year Long
This year marks a half-century since the world lost Agatha Christie, so there are extensive commemorations and several new book publications. Perhaps the most anticipated is Lucy Foley’s reboot of the Miss Marple series with September’s publication of Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel. There’s also a new Poirot limited series for television in the…
Janice Hallett’s The Silent Appeal
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. Janice Hallett’s The Silent Appeal is due out in late August in Canada and the U.S., and in early September in the UK (which is, itself, a bit of a mystery for a new British crime novel: it’s more common for the North American publication…
Back in Print: Val McDermid’s Lindsay Gordon
My Canada Day treat is this delight: the first volume in Val McDermid’s Lindsay Gordon series, her first set of novels. Report for Murder, first published in 1987, was McDermid’s début; she was a newspaper journalist when she created the UK’s first lesbian detective, an amateur investigator who is also a reporter when the series…
The Dying Light: Forthcoming Ann Cleeves
With thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan for this preview. The Dying Light, the new Matthew Venn mystery, will be out in early October in Canada and the U.S. A couple of weeks ago Ann Cleeves, Shetland Noir’s patron, appeared at a fun crime fiction festival that’s on my bucket list. Cleeves was discussing her two…
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Turns 100: Suspense and Spoilers
Agatha Christie published her daring and innovative crime novel in June of 1926. This month there are festivities galore to celebrate the centenary. It’s not like the novel hasn’t already been fêted extensively: in 2013, the British Crime Writers’ Association declared Christie the best crime novelist of all time, and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd…
Agatha Christie’s Third Girl
Agatha Christie was in her mid-seventies when she published Third Girl, an Hercule Poirot/Ariadne Oliver murder mystery (of sorts) set in London during the Swinging Sixties. The beatniks and starving artists in velvet pants are singled out for their peculiarities, and there’s a lot of tsk-tsk youth today chatter. But this book really has everything:…
Island Crime Fiction: From Scotland to Scylly
I typically discover new (to me) crime writers in a range of ways: through newspaper and online reviews; from friends who foist favourites on me; and as fortuitous discoveries in Free Little Libraries. But this is my first time finding a terrifically interesting crime writer by happenstance, while arranging to rent her home during my…
Val McDermid’s Silent Bones (Karen Pirie #8)
Scottish crime writer Val McDermid is prolific as well as extraordinarily accomplished: she writes some of the best crime fiction currently in print, and she continues to challenge herself with more complex plots and characterizations. Karen Pirie, the Historical Cases investigator who is the protagonist of this series, is a good example. McDermid has portrayed…
The Many Labours of Hercules: From Agatha Christie’s Short Stories to David Suchet’s Penultimate Poirot
Agatha Christie’s The Labours of Hercules is a set of short stories. The prologue starts with a friend, a classical scholar and Fellow at All Souls College, who asks Poirot about his first name, which is hardly apt, as well as that of his brother, Achille. Do I not resemble the classical hero?, asks Poirot,…
