Tower and Town, July 2024 (view the full edition)A Good ReadAnyone who has been a victim of even the very lowest level crime knows it's frightening and disturbing, so it's strange really that crime novels are so massively popular. Some people like them as gritty and forensically gruesome as possible, while others prefer the subgenre known as 'Cosy Crime'. We start to read about a shuddering parlour maid saying "Lor lumme, Madam, it did give me a turn. That poor gentleman with his head all battered in, and how we're to get the stains out of the Colonel's Persian rug I do not know" and we lie back and dive in, so to speak. (Might be as well to have a physiotherapist on speed dial.) We can't get enough of the exploits of the Marlow Murder Club, Mrs Sidhu's catering company and so many more. There's even a series in which the detectives are cats (possibly a step too far even for such a batty cat lady as your correspondent). The Richards Osman and Coles, M C Beaton, S J Bennett, Ian Moore - I could go on flourish, like the green bay tree beneath which the decomposing corpse lies. A Case of Mice and Murder, by Sally Smith meets all the criteria for the category. It takes place in a small, enclosed community, in this case the Inner Temple, with an amateur sleuth and a notmuch mourned victim. It's 1901, and mildmannered barrister Gabriel Ward is tasked to investigate, discreetly please! the murder of the Lord Chief Justice. He's also involved in a complicated case around the copyright of a bestselling children's book. Written in a pleasingly slightly arch style, with dry commentary, bouncy humour and a lot of heart, this is a thoroughly entertaining oldfashioned murder mystery. It would make a perfect Sunday night TV series. And now for a complete change of pace, theme and style. These columns are written a month before you read them, and I'm typing this on 6th June. Quite coincidentally I've just finished reading From the City, From the Plough, by Alexander Baron. Following the men of the fictional 5th Wessex (based on the 5th Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment) in the weeks either side of DDay it's a vivid, nearcontemporary account of the boredom and intensity of training and war. Unsentimental yet moving, occasionally comical, I'm in no position to judge the authenticity of the descriptions, but it has the ring of truth. There are two more novels by Baron available, I shall read them both. Debby Guest |