Saturday January 31st, 2026
Books in January
- A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz
Once again we are treated to the author's delightful intertwining of his real and fictional lives in the shape of a new Hawthorne book. For the background in this book, he's able to exploit his (true) experience within the world of film and production, as they have decided (in fiction) to adapt his first Hawthorne novel for the big screen. Unfortunately, he is left to discover without being pre-warned that they have chosen as their primary consultant Hawthorne himself, and even worse, they have hired a "writer" — who needless to say is not Anthony and who has her own ideas about the way the story needs to be presented — then to cap it all they have not invited Anthony to the pre-production meetings. Hard not to be offended eh?
Part of the filming takes place in Hastings which gives Anthony the chance to reminisce and talk about Hastings from his time there filming Foyle's War — and provides delightful opportunity for humour in Anthony's reaction to the actors chosen to play Hawthorne and (more understandably) himself! The mystery itself is, as usual, twisty and well-plotted.
Who could ask for more?
[I can see it would be hard to adapt this for TV — on several levels one of which is that Hawthorne is full of a lot of conflicting and interesting personality traits some of which would be hard to represent without being "cancelled". I suppose in casting an actor to play the author, it would draw a more definite line between fact and fiction. However I did hear that Horowitz had a specific actor in mind when he wrote Hawthorne, and I would love to see Charlie Creed-Miles with Rory Kinnear (or Toby Stephens) take on the roles for real — but they have to promise me not to remove all the humour and characterisation in favour of yet another TV series featuring a banal crime-solving duo.] - The Clues in the Fjord by Satu Rämö [Read by Colleen Prendergast]
An interesting book given to me for Christmas. It has a strong knitting reference which I suspect is intended to capture the "ladies of a certain age" like me who are the main consumers of crime as well as knitting patterns I believe. But then, apparently, a lot of people moaned that it wasn't about knitting — however, 'thank goodness' I'd say as knitting is not half as interesting to talk about as it is to execute!
Anyway this is a an excellent police crime story set in the Westfjords region of Iceland — a long way from Reykjavik and a bit akin to the Wild West in terms of range and community policing. Jakob from Finland is seconded to the district on an internship exchange, and so we are introduced to Iceland through his eyes. Jakob is also the knitter and his interest/yarn buying/colleagues reactions is all introduced in a fairly realistic way — although I feel he knits a sweater in a fairly unrealistic time scale — even with all the very lengthy car travel that the job involves (he's the passenger I hasten to add!).
As a twist on Nordic Noir apparently this is genre is dubbed Nordic Blue (a bit cosier — but not much!). Anyway this could be a good substitute series for Ann Cleeves' Shetland books if you are missing them.
Wednesday January 28th, 2026
Death on the Nile
This is a new staging * of Death On the Nile - a pretty difficult murder plan to pull off in real life never mind demonstrate on stage in the setting of a cruise ship. This version - by necessity - combines and discards various characters to make it workable - as Christie did herself in her own stage version Murder on the Nile (where she took the opportunity of excluding Hercule Poirot altogether).
I found this version quite original while staying true to the plot. The staging was very clever moving smoothly between very different sets - all supported by darkly atmospheric lighting throughout which added much to the production - but I felt perhaps it might have benefited from the occasional contrasting brighter scene.
* Tour dates until end of May 2026
Wednesday January 21st, 2026
Being Mr Wickham
I am fond of Adrian Lukis outside of his role in the famous TV version of Pride and Prejudice from the 1990s, so I was very interested in seeing this one man play at the Minerva theatre in Chichester. It is a charming and clever piece, which creates a back story for Wickham, who is recounting his life to us on his 60th birthday (with Lydia closeted in the bedroom in a huff). And then I find that he not only stars in the piece but wrote it as well! Admittedly I'm guessing he must be dogged by his fame from P&P so know the character backwards, but even so...
My other half, who is not only not much of a P&P fan but also not so interested in Austen and period pieces, was surprisingly over-impressed with it, which confirms just how really good it was. He said he thought that Lukis had created an interesting back story for Wickham - but what impressed me was that everything he talked about relating to the Austen story was absolutely there in the text. [The one thing that appeared nuanced was his version of how he "refused" the living offered by old Mr Darcy and took a pay-off instead after the old man's death - but it was wholly convincing that young Darcy would perhaps have been as eager to pay him off as he might have been grateful for the offer].
There were in my opinion two shining truths that came through this play. One is that, in this play, Wickham tells us that Darcy had everything except charm - which I think is quite true - as much as we love Darcy and see him as a worthy moral character, (and completely suited to Elizabeth), a romantic figure he really was not - we just sketch this in through knowing of his love for Elizabeth. Wickham on the other hand, I think, oozes genuine charm in excess - and for that Darcy could never forgive him.
The second truth is that strong morals and high minded values are all very well (and easier to live by) if you are secure and wealthy, and don't have to live by your wits just to survive.
Monday January 12th, 2026
Rag rugs
Elspeth Jackson came to talk to us this month with a wonderful selection of her rag rags illustrating several different techniques used in the making. I must say I was very tempted to buy her book on the subject, but having had a go (not to mention a couple of classes) some while ago I feel I don't have enough time to give it the attention it deserves as a proper art form. I was inspired by her tiny projects to think we might make miniature rag rug wreaths as our Christmas project at Creative Fibes...
