One of the hazards of reading any sort of 'older' fiction - and especially something like detective fiction where there may be recurring and quite interesting characters, but the books themselves are written not as a series but a set of nice neat packages with defined beginnings and endings - is that you can find an author you like, republished or epublished, read two or three books, get interested in how things are developing, and then find the next in the series is, for whatever reason, not available from the same source.
This recently happened to me with Elizabeth (otherwise E X) Ferrars. Intrigued by the odd dynamic between separated-but-never-got-round-to-the-divorce couple Virginia and Felix Freer, who clearly still care a lot about each other, I found that number three was not available as an ebook and have had to order a secondhand hardback for about four times the price - at least it's available as a hardback though. It would be maddening to not be able to get my hands on it.
Of course I'm also in the fortunate position of access to the British Library if I were really desperate, but I've actually not been into the reading rooms since the cyber attack (for those who don't know: the BL was the victim of an attack late last year and has since put a number of measures in place, but the advice is still to ring up to check whether materials are available). I don't have a pressing need for anything specific, so am happy to wait for now.
Elizabeth Ferrars had a good long career in writing - roughly 60 years, starting in what would later be called the Golden Age of detective fiction, and finishing up in the 90s. Virginia and Felix come into the late 70s, having separated because (and when) Virginia realised Felix was a crook - a light fingered compulsive liar with a lot of charm and a plausible face who genuinely doesn't understand why it upset Virginia so much to realise all the nice presents he got her were almost certainly stolen.
On the other hand his moral code around such things as murder and blackmail is pretty strong. What is fascinating about the books I've read so far (which are written from Virginia's point of view) is you can see why Virginia was absolutely right to leave him, and not go back to him - and at the same time why she still cares about him enough not to sling him out when he turns up, and he still cares enough about her that when things turn nasty, it's the impact on her he focusses on.
The mysteries on the the other hand are interesting enough to hang a book on but would probably be quite disappointing to a purist. The puzzling and cluing is not precisely absent but... it definitely feels like Felix is more of the 'because I know how people's minds work' detective than the 'rock solid case' one.
Anyway I'm enjoying them.
Other recent secondhand purchases are Ellis Peters' Death Mask and Holiday with Violence. Death Mask I don't think I ever read before - despite binging Ellis Peters in the 90s. She has a tendency, in my opinion, to sometimes have characters read each other's motives so accurately it amounts to telepathy. She does that here, and it shakes my belief a little. No-one is that perceptive about someone they just met.
Whereas Holiday with Violence is set on a backpacking holiday in Italy and was probably my favourite Ellis Peters when I first read it, which is why I absolutely read my copy to bits. I'm very glad to get a nice intact paperback that I'll hang onto - and the descriptions of place have made me want to go to Italy all over again, which luckily I am doing in October.
I also read London Particular by Christianna Brand, and Shroud for a Nightingale by P D James. In the latter I kept thinking 'does Adam Dalgleish not know he can call for back-up?' Although he does feel moved at one point to suggest a member of his team should quit the job if he ever finds he enjoys being cruel, so perhaps you don't want back-up from people like that. It's very '70s, in the best of ways - realistic about the fallout of murder and how life goes on for some people while others never recover.
London Particular was good - Brand is consistently so - but there's an unpleasant flavour of internalised misogyny that I don't remember in Green for Danger or Death in High Heels, although Death of Jezebel which I read last year had a bit of it too. Men in these books are apparently allowed to do all kinds of stupid things and be forgiven or at least sympathised with, but let a woman (or in this case little more than a girl) be a bit unpleasant or 'loose' and she gets what she deserves, apparently. The use of the fog was excellent though. Very atmospheric, and the slightly mad household the story revolves around definitely kept me guessing to the end.
Death of Mr Dodsley by John Ferguson was, I'm sorry, rather more dry. It begins and ends well but the middle bit dragged. Perhaps I was expecting too much - the idea of a murder in a Charing Cross bookshop sounded so enticing. I was also infuriated by incorrect information about concussion - which I've had and can confirm absolutely does mean losing a period before and after the event and having perfectly normal recall outside it, which even in the 30s I'm sure was known.
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