nancy@enmasse.UUCP (Nancy Werlin) (10/07/85)
A couple of recent articles (actually, references) about murder
mysteries have reminded me of one of my own favorite writers:
Christianna Brand. Ms. Brand is rarely mentioned even among
afficianados -- but she's written the single best whodunit
I've ever read, and followed it up with a few more that head
the remainder of my Quality List.
I should mention my orientation here, perhaps:
I think Agatha Christie is an excuse for a writer -- and a
poor excuse, at that (except, maybe, for *Death on the Nile*).
I adore Josephine Tey (must have read *Brat Farrar* four times,
and *Miss Pym Disposes* three or four), Ross Macdonald,
and Dashiell Hammett. I have never managed to complete
a Dorothy L. Sayers, but feel this has got to be my own fault.
Who else? I used to like Robert Parker, but am with the school
that thinks Spenser has deteriorated horribly with the last two
or three books. (That non-Spenser, *Love and Honor*, was postively
embarrassing.)
Anyway, back to Christianna Brand. She may be dead (I hope not)
but her stuff is a good forty years old. I have recently been
seeing reprints in bookstores; before this it was hard to get
copies. The books I've read are:
Tour de Force
Green is for Danger
Fog of Doubt
Cat and Mouse
I'd recommend them all, but my own favorite is *Tour de Force*, in
which our detective hero, a balding, middle-aged, likes-his-comforts
Englishman takes a tour group vacation to I've forgotten where in the
Mediterranean. Of course, his fellow travelers are an interesting
mixture; of course, one is murdered; of course, all are suspect.
Brand is very much of the The Clues are All There school; and you
really can figure it out -- but you have to be very, very, very
good to do so. (Frankly, I'm not good enough, but I had the
experience of lending this book to a friend of mine and watching
him read it, very slowly, drawing charts and re-reading passages
and so forth. Took him about two weeks of careful work, but he
did figure it out. Although when he broached his thesis (the
correct thesis), it was with some scorn at himself for even having
thought of it; his favorite thesis was, it turned out, the wrong
one.)
*Green for Danger* takes place in an emergency hospital in England
during WWII; I think it was made into a movie, but I haven't seen
it. As in *Tour de Force*, Brand's strong points are her
characterisations (these are no Christie cardboard cut-out characters)
her meticulous plotting, and her writing ability. I am afraid to
tell you too much -- but you know how many writers get attached
to their characters (and how you get attached to them too, in the
course of a novel) such that you know for darn sure that so-and-so
isn't going to get murdered, and that so-and-so couldn't really
have done it? Well, Brand isn't afraid to undercut the affections
that she herself has created. This sets up an atmosphere of fear
in her novels that is unstoppable. And she doesn't cheat to do
it -- doesn't set you up by making innocent children victims, for
example -- that's too easy a way to engage your sympathies.
Instead, she makes you understand each character; then, when
you're a part of the action, BOOM!
Well, I should do some work around here. If anyone has read other
Brands, please let me know.
Nancy Werlin
EnMasse Computer Corp.
Acton, MAjpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA (John Purbrick) (10/11/85)
> A couple of recent articles (actually, references) about murder > mysteries have reminded me of one of my own favorite writers: > Christianna Brand. > If anyone has read other > Brands, please let me know. > Nancy Werlin Personally, I haven't read any of Brand's books, but my girlfriend the Bookwoman has, and her report was that she respected Brand's plots but disliked her style. She said it was in the "English Facetious" tradition, and admits to a poor tolerance for it. One writer she compared Brand to was Delano Ames, another Englishwoman, whose books I enjoy ("Corpse Diplomatique" is one) and who certainly has a whimsical style. Ames's detective is Dagobert Brown, perhaps the only neer-do-well detective? Anyway, she has a couple of Brand's books, so maybe I'll try them, just as soon as I finish "The Mystery of the Cape Cod Tavern" by Phoebe Atwood Taylor, featuring the Yankee sleuth Asey Mayo. Ayup.