Monday July 31st, 2023
Books in July
- The Mortal Sickness by Andrew Taylor [read by Philip Franks]
As I said last year I was so enamoured of the first Lydmouth book that I immediately wanted to move on to the second, but decided to wait until the summer as that's the season in which this is set.
So - at the height of summer, we see Jill Francis herself actually discovering a body in the church, which naturally brings her back into contact with police detective Richard Thornhill. As well as the murder of an apparently uninteresting woman, a valuable church artifact has gone missing, which seems unlikely to have been a straight forward robbery as it's too famous to sell. Despite the sunshine, there is still the gloomy veil of the post-war era enveloping Lydmouth, and we get to understand more about Thornhill's and Jill's (separate) home lives, as each starts to acknowledge his underlying feelings about the other.
For her part, Jill has outstayed her welcome with Charlotte and Philip, and is relieved to find an ally in the vicar's wife, who is able to offer her a cottage to rent. -
A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin [Read by James Macpherson]
Past cases of police corruption are being investigated after one corrupt cop threatens to tell all - and then mysteriously disappears. Siobhan Clarke is the unwilling investigator in a case where all roads lead to Rebus. Working against Rebus are many who have an axe to grind, and would like to see him finally brought to book - or at the very least "go down with them".
The story starts and ends with Rebus, unwell and in the dock (literally), facing charges that could put him in prison for the rest of his life. So we end on a cliff-hanger. I can't believe the next book will see Siobhan as a prison visitor, and Rebus solving crimes from his cell - but then Rankin is an inventive author - always full of surprises.
While I salute Rankin for avoiding turning Rebus, Siobhan, and Malcolm Fox into a cosy gang, the result is that I do find it hard to keep any clear or consistent picture of each of them in my head. The one thing that emerges is that none of the three is a team player - all very much lone wolves. Rebus and Siobhan did seem to have an underlying loyal friendship, but looking back, it was always based on their chain of command, with Rebus being the "boss". Over time, Siobhan has become more cynical of his continual and undisguised exploitation of their friendship. And neither of them seem able to accept or trust Malcolm - who I always felt was one of the "Good Guys". I know in real life, people are never one-dimensionally uncomplicated, but I think friendship transcends that - especially if you accept the fact that "there is never anything so bad that your friend won't do it to you". -
The Royal Secret by Andrew Taylor [Read by Leighton Pugh]
I'm listening to this book out of sequence, as I read the subsequent one last February. Our two protagonists have developed their friendship as companions, with visits to musical evenings and the theatre. However, a small rift occurs due to a social misunderstanding at one such event, leading to misdirected jealousies. So they cease to see quite so much of each other, and the plot follows each of their separate paths - which of course inevitably end up crossing at regular intervals.
The secret of the title is based on communications between Charles II and his sister at the court of Louis XIV, and which led to the Treaty of Dover. As well as the official treaty, offering English military support to France, there was a secret element which stated that Charles would (in exchange for money) convert to the Roman Catholic Church "at some future date", and return England to Catholicism. Needless to say this was never enacted, and only became public a century later.
The book covers interesting details about the 17th century fashion for gentlemen of substance to keep exotic animals - in this case a lion - with clearly no idea of how they should be looked after. [Poor lion...]
I note there had been a menagerie at the Tower of London from medieval times, with animal welfare seemingly reaching an all-time low in the 1700s. Although welfare improved through the next century, a few accidents finally confirmed the impracticality of humanely keeping wild beasts there, and in the 1830s the animals were removed to the new London Zoo at Regent's Park.
Thursday July 20th, 2023
Robin Hood
So it's a fun show with good reviews - the Guardian labelling it a "must see".
I loved the special effects where arrows were (apparently!) shot onto the stage, using I assume a simple trick involving distraction and "Strongbow" sound effects. I particularly loved the various iterations of male Robins (*see note) who took to the stage imagining it to be their show - only to be rebuffed by the actual band of "merry women" as they were in this story. I loved Errol Flynn (he just WAS Errol Flynn), and I took a few moments to recognise Russell Crowe (accent thoroughly made fun of) even though I'm quite keen on his film - but I did not know Michael Praed as Robin at all. [Later I watched the TV series which I found a bit magical/mystical but also quite clever - and Ray Winstone is lovely!].
Personally, while I enjoyed the play a lot, I had a few problems with it. I felt it could not make up its mind if it were a musical or not, (and if it were, I thought the music was a bit dirgy), and it could not decide if it were a comedy or had serious gender or ecological points to make. However, to be fair to them all, the biggest problem they had with me, was that they publicised it as being "by the same team who produced The Grinning Man". I found the latter to be such an unexpectedly excellent musical that anything suggesting it was as good as that was almost bound to be a disappointment.
* Note: if you are interested in Robins, take a look at this website which provides an excellent summary and analysis. As I am "of that generation" that fondly remember Richard Greene "riding through the glen", I easily see the truth of Greene being less an action figure like Flynn and more a squadron leader - he was well into his forties and quite chunky towards the end of the series.
