Vintage Mystery – Carol's Notebook

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

February 24, 2025February 24, 2025 by CarolNo Comments

I don't know how many times I've read And Then There Were None or books inspired by it. I know I've watched at least one tv adaptation. This is one of those novels that is surprising and tense the first time through. The second (and third, etc.) time, the reader knows the twist, knows who is terrorizing the characters, knows who is guilty and who isn't, but can appreciate how well Christie puts the plot together. Ten people, strangers to each other, are invited to a remote island by someone they each think they are acquainted with. They are a mix of personalities, but according to a record played the first evening, they are all guilty of murder or causing someone's death. They are then killed, one by one, and a storm means they have no connection to the mainland. They have to trust each other if they want to survive, but know that none of them is as innocent as...

Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie

February 10, 2025February 10, 2025 by CarolNo Comments

I have to admit that in general I don't read a lot of short stories. I prefer the room novels give to let us get to know characters, learn motives, discover clues. That being said, this is a very good collection. Miss Marple is a sweet old lady who rarely leaves her small town but has a knack of understanding human nature. Most of the stories start in a similar way. A revolving group sit down to dinner to recall difficult cases. The others are challenged to solve them. Miss Marple, at first overlooked and only included out of politeness, is the one who always arrives at the correct solutions. She notes that people get into the same situations, whether they live in a village or a city. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did a wonderful job. All the characters were distinct and consistent across stories. She brought our Miss Marple's sense of humor and pleasure in outwitting...

Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

January 8, 2025 by CarolNo Comments

I do love a good Poirot mystery and this one is interesting because each of our potential suspects gets to tell their story exactly as they remember it. Poirot is asked by a young woman to solve the murder of her father, Amyas, a famous painter who was killed 16 years ago. Although her mother, Caroline, was tried, convicted, and died in prison, she left her daughter a note claiming she was innocent. Poirot agrees to look into it and happily, the five other people at the house at the time are all still alive. Poirot visits each of them and asks them to write down how they remember the events of that time. They all oblige. Through those accounts, we learn more about Caroline and Amyas Crale, but also about everyone else concerned. Everyone sees the others just a bit differently and layers and layers are added to the timeline and the characters, some obvious, others surprising. We do...

The Devil’s Flute Murders by Seishi Yokomizo

May 10, 2024May 10, 2024 by Carol2 Comments

The Devil’s Flute Murders is set in 1947, as Japan continues its slow recovery from WWII. A young woman, Mineko, asks Kindaichi for help. Mineko's father, Viscount Tsubaki, was found dead, apparently of suicide, but it seems that his ghost is haunting their family, especially her mother Akiko. It turns into a complex case with multiple murders, questions of ghostly visitation, a family history that must be explored, and many family members, friends, and servants living on the estate grounds. It's an atmospheric mystery, with the potential ghost, spooky music, even bad weather all playing into the feeling. The book is also full of period detail. Following the war, Japan is dealing with a lot, including planned blackouts, crowded trains with hard to obtain tickets, food shortages, and bombed and lost homes, some of which contribute to the plot. I listened to the audio. The narrator did a good job with the pronunciations and accents, as far as I could tell, and...

The Widening Stain by W. Bolingbroke Johnson

May 3, 2024May 3, 2024 by Carol2 Comments

The Widening Stain is a quirky, funny and humorous mystery from 1942. It's set at a university and the cast are professors and staff. When Mademoiselle Coindreau, the French assistant professor, is found dead in the library, apparently having fallen off a ladder, the police assume it's an accident. Gilda Gorham, the Chief Catalogurer, is suspicious, however. Too many things just don't make sense, so she begins a discrete investigation. The mystery was fine. We have several suspects including professors and the chief librarian, but Gilda maybe spends more time thinking about who the killer is than actually trying to solve the case. The book shines in its setting and dialogue. The author knows academia well and pokes fun at it just enough. The characters are entertaining and don't see how funny they are. The word play is fabulous, including more limericks than I've ever come across in one book before. I listened to the audio, which worked well for me....

The White Priory Murders by Carter Dickson

December 30, 2023December 30, 2023 by Carol3 Comments

James Bennett, nephew of our semi-amateur sleuth Sir Henry Merrivale, has been invited to a house party in the White Priory, home to the brothers, John and Maurice Bohun. The star guest is Marcia Tait, a glamorous actress who has just walked out of a Hollywood contract so she can act in a play written by Maurice. Of course, Marcia ends up dead and everyone in the house is a suspect. It's almost a locked room mystery. With the building surrounded by snow, the killer's footprints should have been clear, but the only prints are those left by John Bohun, who discovered the body. I do love a good house party in the snow murder but the characters in this one are just not quite as interesting as the blurb promises. And we only see Sir Henry at the beginning and near the end. He does solve the puzzle but I didn't get much of a feel for him. It was maybe...