'Crooked House' by Agatha Christie

Described by the queen of mystery herself as one of her favorites of her published work, Crooked House is a classic Agatha Christie thriller revolving around a devastating family mystery.

The Leonides are one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That is until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection.

MY THOUGHTS: 

 Thumbs up for this one.

Three generations of the Leonides clan live at Three Gables, a rambling, crooked old house. Aristide Leonides, the 88-year-old patriarch, dies suddenly. His killer has ruthlessly swapped insulin with the old man's own eserine eye-drops, which gets injected straight into his blood stream. Agatha Christie has stated poisons to be among her favourite murder weapons, and this callous case takes particular advantage of the victim's vulnerability. 

Aristides' blood relatives comprise two sons and their wives, an elderly sister-in-law, and three grandchildren. They hope the culprit turns out to be Brenda, Aristides' much younger second wife, or Laurence Brown, the timid tutor of the two youngest family members. But they can't help fearing it might be one of themselves, although everyone supposedly loved the old man. 

However, a bit of probing reveals that Aristide has annoyed or strained his relationships with several of them for various reasons. 

The story is narrated by Charles Hayward, the son of Scotland Yard's Assistant Commissioner. Charles is engaged to Aristide's granddaughter Sophia, a pretty girl who refuses to marry him until the family mess gets sorted out. Hence, it's in Charles' best interests to tag along with the investigation team, although this sets him up for some awkwardness with his potential in-laws. 

The unruly family begins to remind Charles strongly of the Crooked Man nursery rhyme, with old Aristide as the lead character. It occurs to him that some of them may be crooked not in a criminal sense, but because they are so tied up with each other that it's hard to untangle themselves as individuals. 

I found myself disliking Aristide mainly because of one questionable decision he made regarding his will, which is bound to create intense family disunity after his death. I sympathize with a couple of family members specifically, for their heated reactions when they discover how their elderly relative left his money. 

The revelation of the murderer is a bit of a shocker, and I can imagine Dame Agatha smirking. She provides fairly decent clues that she counts on readers overlooking. My feelings toward the eventual denouement include horror, especially that one other character would take it upon themselves to play God, so to speak. 

The book was published in 1949, during that post-war, mid-20th century era when everyone seemed to smoke like chimneys. As a true sign of the times, Charles notices the peculiar absence of a familiar smell when he's ushered into Sophia's dad's library. It strikes him that the missing element is tobacco, for Philip Leonides is one of those 'rare beings', a non-smoker. Thankfully times have changed and he's now among the majority of people I know. 

I like this story. The characters are strong and vital, and I find myself wondering what the future will hold for some of them, who I can't mention by name and thereby indicate their innocence. My temptation to flirt with spoilers must signify the compelling quality of this story. It is up among my favourites so far.  

🌟🌟🌟🌟 

'Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel' by Michael Gerard Bauer

Ishmael has made it to the Senior School and things are really looking up. His nemesis and chief tormentor Barry Bagsley has finally decided to leave him alone, while his dream girl and chief goddess Kelly Faulkner has finally decided not to. Has he broken free of Ishmael Leseur's Syndrome at last? Could his remaining two years at St Daniel's College actually be described as 'normal'? Absolutely not. Ishmael's mates critique the Ishmael books: Ignatius Prindabel: I found 37 factual errors. Scobie: Harry Potter for those with an IQ higher than the mean. Bill Kingsley: Funnier than the Arcturian Grendel-Worm. Razzman: Short on chicks, that's all I'm saying.

(Haha, this is one of the more entertaining official blurbs I've read. Got to love the boys' critique of this series which they feature in.) 

MY THOUGHTS:

This is the final installment of the funny but perceptive high school trilogy that begins with Don't Call Me Ishmael. There was a copy of this last novel available as an e-book from the library, so I borrowed it.

It takes Ishmael and his four best friends through Years 11 and 12 at St. Daniel's. They study Hamlet in Mr Slattery's English class and actually take on board some life lessons from the Elizabethan era; every teacher's dream. 

I'm assuming that anyone reading this review will be familiar with the characters of the five boys from the first two novels.

James Scobie pushes his boundaries to consider attempting a bit of sport, Bill Kingsley comes out of the closet (not a spoiler since he makes his big reveal early on in the book), and Ignatius Prindabel quietly amazes the others by becoming a drawcard for nerdy science chicks. Orazio Zorzotto seriously considers boosting his grades, if it may lead to being a P.E. teacher some day. As for Ishmael, he initially loses Kelly Faulkner when she relocates to New Zealand with her family. Yet when she returns, suffering depression, he makes it his personal goal to turn the light back on in those ice-blue eyes. 

The novel's title is truly inspired. The 'hoops' aren't referring to the fact that Bill Kingsley has made himself trim and buff by spinning hula hoops. It's partially drawn from Hamlet, when Polonius tells his son, Laertes, 'Those friends thou hast and their adoption tried, grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.' The boys interpret it to mean, 'Hold your true friends tight with the strongest bonds you can find.' 

Given all the merciless happenings that take place at school, they truly need each other, even Razz and Prindabel. At one point, Razz tells Bill, 'If you're crossing the stream, don't disturb the piranhas.' I appreciate how Bauer, who has worked in the education system, appreciates what a minefield it can be. In all honesty, I've never had as rough a life since I left High School.

 Finally, the boys draw upon their 'hoops of steel' bond in a most creative manner.

The best aspect of this book is the empowering, underlying motivation to set our sights on worthy goals, refusing to let the apparent impossibility of achieving them intimidate us. Our quintet set their sights on winning their House Cup for Miss Tarango, giving it their all. Their eagerness helps them to invent and maximise opportunity rather than focusing on brick walls. They become creative, possibility thinkers, each drawing from their own unique strengths for the sake of the whole. Orazio describes his theory of how 'reverse cool' can become cool again, and it almost makes sense with these boys and their teamwork.

Now, is there a drawback of this book? Hmm, I never thought I'd say this of a storybook bully, but there's not enough Barry Bagsley. In fact, although he's sometimes referred to in passing, Big Bad Bazz doesn't show his face within these pages even one single time. Now, that's unrealistic.

 Sure, he made a pact with Ishmael under heated circumstances toward the end of Return of the Dugongs, yet I can't believe he'd gracefully slip out of the picture entirely. It suggests that Michael Gerard Bauer simply had no spot for Barry in this plot. That's fair enough, but perhaps he should have taken Barry right out of the picture with a cross country move or change of school. 

At least Barry's dropkick friend, Danny Wallace, gives Ishmael a couple of straight vodkas at a formal in another eventful incident. Boys will be boys. 

It made me laugh several times, and I do regret parting with these boys. I quite understand how Miss Tarango would consider these five her favourites. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟½   

Michael Gerard Bauer's 'Don't Call Me Ishmael' trilogy

Don't Call me Ishmael

My husband is a High School relief teacher, and one day he found himself in an English class which was studying this YA novel that features Year nine students in an all-boys school. It sounded like a fun read, so when I spotted a copy at a coastal secondhand bookshop, I bought it. 

The beginning is the biggest hurdle, as our main character, Ishmael Leseur, starts off rambling. Chapter two purports to tell us how he was named after the narrator of Herman Melville's Moby Dick (a book I also found far too long-winded), yet not until chapter three does he actually tell it. I was wondering whether being a tedious narrator simply goes along with the name Ishmael, when luckily the story started growing on me. Whew!  

Ishmael has a fertile and perceptive thought life, but falls short when it comes to talking to people on the spot. He's the king of awkwardness, mind blanks and sticking his foot in his mouth. Bizarre and embarrassing things usually happen to him around his crush, Kelly Faulkner. What's more, he's a prime target of the class bully, Barry Bagsley, a nasty piece of work who relishes his hobby of making others miserable. 

Ishmael's coping tool when it comes to Barry and his gang is to make himself as inconspicuous as possible in an effort to slide beneath their radar. When a vulnerable looking new kid, James Scobie, joins the class, the newcomer's future looks grim. Incredibly, James has ways of holding his own against Barry, which Ishmael benefits from. The downside is that Ishmael's new friend James expects him to join their Year 9 debating team, which gives Ishmael extreme stress just thinking about it. 

I appreciate the fact that Barry is shown as being a jerk simply because it gives him a buzz. As a bullied kid myself at school, I'd grow weary of hearing justifications for their behaviour from teachers, such as, 'Hurt people hurt people.' Apart from resenting that we victims sometimes received less support than our antagonists, it so often didn't hold true. I knew plenty of kids from loving, nurturing backgrounds who still relished bullying just for the thrill of it. Barry seems to be one of these, and good on Bauer for not glossing over it. 

(Update: having read book 2, a fact about Barry's backstory has come to light which some readers will surely say justifies his tendency to lash out at others. But since we don't know about it all through book 1, I'll let my point stand.)  

The overdrawn imagery all through this book amazed me at first. Every page is crammed with vividly-descriptive similes and metaphors. I clearly remember, as a new writer, being corrected by an editor for doing the exact same thing. She crossed them out and told me to stop. ('It draws attention away from the flow of the story itself.') This explanation made sense, so I quickly toned them down.

Considering I took pains to train myself out of the habit, to see Bauer doing it continuously irritated me at first. But then I realized that Bauer has given Ishmael this style for a good reason. It's Ishmael's hallmark, and making these bizarre analogies is how he rolls. I enjoyed it when I got used to it. 

Just goes to show, even techniques that are generally frowned upon by professionals in the industry can become strengths when used consistently and fearlessly. 

The story clearly succeeds overall, because even though I shook my head reading it so many times, I straight away got hold of the second and third books in the series from the library.   

Characterisation and dialogue win the day. It's not often that I actually laugh out loud while reading. I've referred to certain books passing my 'tears test' in previous reviews. I'd better add a 'laughter test' now. The fact that I did laugh pushes this one from three stars to four. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟

 Ishmael and the Return of the Dugongs

Apart from his desire to get a whole lot closer to Kelly Faulkner with the wonderful, ice-blue eyes, Ishmael continues to hold his end up for their debating team. He (ineffectively) attempts to make peace when his friends, Razza and Prindabel keep clashing, and (more effectively) tries to help his dad's middle-aged band members put together a 20-year reunion concert. 

Strokes of cringeworthy bad luck continue to dog his footsteps. It seems some sort of magnetism is involved. Why do tongue-tied, awkward folk like Ishmael (and me, I admit it), tend to attract more than our fair share of face-palmy predicaments?

One big question for readers to figure for ourselves is whether Kelly is attracted to Ishmael or not? We only ever see her through his viewpoint, which remains ambiguous, even when he tries to sneak a read of her diary to find out for sure. The subject could constitute a debate among readers itself. 

Characterisation and dialogue continue to carry the day. People like Ishmael (and me) will continue to envy people like his best mate Razza, who are quick-witted enough to think on their feet and never seem to realize what a fortunate skill that is. The nerds win our affection too. It's good to see James Scobie back as his super-capable self, and I can't help wondering what science geek, Ignatius Prindabel will pull out of his hat in the third installment. 

I went away for a quiet weekend and this was a perfect short holiday read. You don't have to concentrate too hard to get a pretty decent story, there are several laugh-out-loud moments, and enough impetus for me to decide, 'Okay, aother chapter.' What will these five boys deliver next?

🌟🌟🌟🌟

Note: I have also read and reviewed the third installment of this trilogy, Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel.  

'Henrietta's House' by Elizabeth Goudge

Back to beloved cathedral town of Torminster in the early years of this century.

One golden afternoon, Henrietta Ferranti, along with her family and friends, sets out for young Hugh Anthony's birthday party, and he's going to celebrate with the people he loves best, young and old alike. The day begins with a wish and ends with a revelation after a magical mystery tour. A procession of landaus and victorias, plus one motor car, are bound for the Blue Hills and Hugh's picnic. Whatever the reason, each of the horses and ponies carrying them mysteriously lost on its way to the Blue Hills.

As each of the partygoers ventures into an enchanted forest where legend becomes reality and their wildest dreams come true, and by the time the travelers meet again over tea and iced birthday cake, they have had such adventures. Adventures such that none of them is the same person. They are wiser, nicer and much happier. The innocent birthday picnic becomes the adventure of a lifetime and no one will ever be the same again.

MY THOUGHTS:

 After reading the first in the Torminster series, A City of Bells, I wanted to get hold of this sequel. Sourcing it turned out to be easier than I expected. There was a free Internet Archive copy which I borrowed a couple of times. 

Henrietta's House re-introduces several main characters from A City of Bells in this yarn that's saturated with magical realism, then blended with High Church cathedral lore, and a pinch of pagan mysticism in a true Goudgian cocktail.  

Young Hugh Anthony has requested an excursion to Foxglove Combe for a picnic on his birthday. So several archaic, mostly horse-drawn vehicles trundle off from Torminster, and most of them are eerily seduced off course to a strange gatehouse where there are statues of a cowardly, craven child and a mocking imp. (We learn that they represent the cringing human soul in the face of the mockery of Providence.) 

From there, several separate adventures await each carriage load.

Twelve-year-old Hugh Anthony and the pompous old Dean are an unlikely pair, united by their mutual satisfaction at belonging to the Ruling Class and Dominant Sex. These two suffer a few scary come-downs in a network of underground caves. 

Meanwhile, Henrietta and eccentric old Mrs Jameson stumble upon Henrietta's dream house, furnished exactly as she imagined it. Henrietta's plot thread includes her fondness of the domestic lifestyle, pairing magic together with housework in her eyes. There turns out to be a natural explanation for the existence of Henrietta's dream abode, but it still has a hint of the paranormal.

Grandfather and Bates befriend a bitter old man at the weird gatehouse who indulges in the black arts, making voodoo dolls which he pricks with pins. 

Amusingly, only Grandmother's party avoids being magically misdirected, because she's so chock full of common-sense and bossiness, no supernatural sleight of hand could possibly get the better of her. 

Jocelyn and Felicity come to grief in their spiffy new motor car. It's state of the art for them, but strikes the modern reader as an antique rattletrap. They crank it up at the front to start, and even wear full motor outfits similar to Toad's in The Wind in the Willows. And when Jocelyn steers it through the main street, he's terrified of running somebody over. Since drivers' licences were a thing of the future, it was a valid fear. Of course while Jocelyn and Felicity show off their pride and joy, the oldies deplore the noise, smell and speed. Grandfather hates to offend the young couple but secretly laments that peace and quiet will soon be a thing of the past. 

It's worth noting that even though they are now married, Felicity still works as a stage performer in the city. That's commendably liberal for the early twentieth century, but I guess she's the major bread-winner. It seems Jocelyn's bookshop is still more of a passion project, so perhaps sadly times haven't changed much in some ways. He's said to have a wise and owlish look as a result of reading his merchandise all day. Hopefully the same thing applies to today's book bloggers. 

This is a strangely compelling read, like many of Goudge's stories. 

It's also worth mentioning Henrietta's Top Twenty books she'd recommend for fellow kids. I'm always up for ticking off yet another new reading list. Some of these I'd never heard of, but they were evidently popular in their era. 

1) The Water Babies

2) Alice in Wonderland

3) Undine

4) The Pilgrim's Progress

5) Jackanapes

6) Little Women

7) The Fairchild Family

8) A Flat Iron for a Farthing

9) The Back of the North Wind

10) The Princess and the Curdie

11) Uncle Remus

12) Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales

13) The Swiss Family Robinson

14) Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book

15) Andrew Lang's Red Fairy Book

16) Andrew Lang's Green Fairy Book

17) Mary's Meadow

18) Lob-Lie-By-The-Fire

19) Treasure Island

20) The Cocky-Olly Bird

 🌟🌟🌟🌟½

'Pollyanna of Magic Valley' by Virginia May Moffitt

MY THOUGHTS: 

We have a new author picking up the slack with this twelfth Glad Book. Virginia May Moffitt does a nice job of weaving in threads left dangling by other authors, most recently Margaret Piper Chalmers.

This is a post-WW2 tale, and all the male family members have survived combat, which we'd surely hope, being a Glad book. Pollyanna and her daughter, Ruth, are heading to Palm City, Rio Grande Valley, Texas, where they plan to join newlyweds, Jim Junior and Rosemary. Jimmy Senior, aka the Chief, is already there with the young couple. Many of their close neighbours are Latin American, and the story highlights plenty of inter-racial prejudice. 

Jim Junior has picked up a very cool contract taking promo photos of the region. He's lucky to land a plum job in line with his passion. The problem is that rental properties are as scarce as hen's teeth. The Pendletons manage to make a contract with Nelson Kipps, a chilly and brusque old man who owns a derelict property where his heart was once broken. The catch is, it's rumoured to be haunted. Strange lights bob up and down behind shaded windows at night. And when our family of five move in, bumps and thumps are added to the mix. 

Once again, the Pendleton family's total scepticism of the supernatural surprises me. They dismiss any possibility of spiritual or ghostly input as impossible. If any occurrence falls outside the limited evidence of their five senses... well, they refuse to let it fall outside. They have to jam it into their explainable worldview somehow, and the author, Moffitt, gives the Pendleton family the logical explanation they demand. 

I tend to keep a far more open mind than these characters, and give the supernatural realm the respect it deserves. There is surely far more depth to the goings on in our vast cosmos than meets the eye.

One thing is certain. If I'd seen eerie lights inside a supposedly empty old house with a spooky reputation, I would have abandoned all ideas of wanting to rent it. Surely that's not just me being chicken hearted.   

I think the Pendletons have idealized expectations about the rental market too. They consider Mr Kipps to be mean and churlish when he agrees to rent his old house to them with stipulations. He insists on locking some expensive antique furniture items up in the attic and denying them access. Come on Pendletons, I did the rental shuffle-around for years, and this is all part and parcel of the lifestyle. If they consider Mr Kipps to be ungenerous then so are many landlords and landladies I've rented from. In fact, I have far worse stories. You gotta just suck it up. People tend to be very precious with their own property. 

Although Pollyanna's name is on the cover, our touchstone character is often eighteen-year-old Ruth, who is a refreshing heroine. She combines Pollyanna's sunny friendliness with Jimmy's frank practicality. I think her tendency to flare up with righteous temper is also from her dad, and her brother shares the same trait. Throughout the series, Ruth has been used to being overshadowed by her prettier sister, Judy, and now it's her gorgeous sister-in-law, Rosemary. Nothing has really changed, but she never lets comparisons with these more conventional beauties get her down. 

BTW, Judy and her husband, Ron, live far away, but the others miss her badly and write lots of letters.

Several other teenagers feature in this story, including Mr Kipps' musical granddaughter, Barbara, whose life Ruth saves on the very first page of this book. There is also a proud girl named Susan who has a knack for interior design, and several boys who Moffitt presumably added to appeal to her female teenage market, but these fellows tend to blur into one.

Interesting details include severe blows to the citrus industry when the mercury plummets down below zero. The Aussie orange crops I'm used to never contend with such severe cold snaps. And the family owns a Morris chair, which is a type of recliner invented by William Morris, the textile and wallpaper legend. When I googled them they looked familiar, but I had no idea that's what they're called. 

Hey, anyone who's into fashion parades may enjoy one particular thread with dresses made out of fruit and vegetables.  

Moffitt, for the most part, uses her setting to complement her plot, rather than dumping huge gluts of description just for the sake of it, ȧ la Elizabeth Borton. I find the amazing HEAs a bit too pat and forced, and the eventual solution of the mystery turns out to be far more weird and unlikely than plain old ghosts, in my opinion. I still quite enjoyed this story. After all, we have Pollyanna and Jimmy in their early fifties, sharing a haunted house with their adult kids! That premise alone hooked me from the start. What would Eleanor H. Porter have thought if she imagined where other authors would take her little glad girl?   

🌟🌟🌟½

I'm nervous to see Elizabeth Borton's name back on the next book, Pollyanna and the Secret Mission. Having passed on the baton, she now picks it back up again. Come on lady, you wanted out! Oh well, I'll soon see what it's like.