The In Crowd

The In Crowd by Charlotte Vassell, 424 pages

DI Caius Beauchamp was just trying to enjoy a bad play after his date stood him up when the next thing he knows, he's sitting next to a dead guy covered in vomit. As he looks into who this guy was and what he was even doing at this horrible drunken production of The Importance of Being Earnest, Caius learns that the dead man was in London looking into a cold case, the disappearance of a teen girl from a remote boarding school. Soon, Caius has taken up the banner and is simultaneously investigating this 15-year-old case as he also looks into the death of a woman pulled out of the Thames.

I feel like that was a horrible description of a book that ties together both of these cases, as well as the snooty upper crust of British society (that bit hinges on a surprisingly likeable milliner) in a compelling way. The twists were good and Vassell hit the sweet spot of letting the reader figure it out just barely before the characters did. This is the second in a series, and stood well on its own, even though I haven't read the first one yet. But I definitely will!

The Fourth Bear

The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde, 378 pages

In the second (and sadly last) of Fforde's Nursery Crime books, Inspector Jack Spratt and his colleague Mary Mary are riding high off the success of their Humpty Dumpty murder investigation (detailed in The Big Over Easy) when a reporter who was investigating an exploded championship cucumber goes missing. Since that reporter is named Goldilocks and was last seen at the forest home of a bear family, the case falls squarely within the purview of the Nursery Crime Division, and Jack and Mary are on the case. Throw in a misguided theme park based on the Battle of the Somme, a powerful multinational company that has its fingers in EVERYTHING, Punch & Judy living next door, and a self-healing automobile, and you've got a classic Fforde story.

Like with The Big Over Easy, this is a gajillionth-time reread, and I still love it. I'd forgotten how meta this book gets — Mary and Jack make lots of references to plot devices and the author, all of which go over the heads of the other characters — but it makes perfect sense if you've read Fforde's Thursday Next series. This is just  smart, silly fun in book form, and it's perfect for breaks from The Tale of Genji.

The Big Over Easy

The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde, 383 pages

Head of the Nursery Crime Division of the Reading police force, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt is chronically overworked and underfunded, living in the shadow of the golden boy detective Friedland Chymes and — with cases like charging the three little pigs with premeditated murder for boiling the big bad wolf alive — serving as the laughingstock around town. But then two things happen: he gets a new assistant in inspector Mary Mary (who is from Basingstoke, which is nothing to be ashamed of) and notorious ladies man Humpty Dumpty is murdered. Suddenly, Jack has a high profile case on his hands, and the future of the NCD rests on his ability to solve it, and quickly.

Much like Fforde's excellent Thursday Next series, this is an old favorite of mine. I picked it up this time because, well, The Tale of Genji is just too darn heavy (in both the literary and physical sense) to read at bedtime. I still love this book, and every time I read it, I pick up another clever reference or literary joke. If you haven't read anything by Fforde, this is a good gateway drug.

Leonard and Hungry Paul

Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession, 247 pages

Leonard is a thirty-something man who lived with his mother until her death, keeping her company when he wasn't at work cleaning up the text for kids' encyclopedias. His best friend is Hungry Paul, who similarly lives with his parents, keeping them company when he isn't occasionally filling in for absent postal carriers. They're book good, quiet men who are quite happy in their introvert lifestyles. But Hungry Paul's sister is getting married, which causes her to start fretting about who will take care of the family as she starts her own; meanwhile, Leonard seems to have caught the attention of Sheila, an artistic woman who works in the same office building. Will these events upset their calm lives and longtime friendship?

This is an absolutely charming book about everyday mediocre people. It's sweet, ponderous (but in a good way!), and just all around pleasant. Highly recommended for fans of Nina Stibbe and realistic British fiction.

Paradise Lodge

Paradise Lodge by Nina Stibbe, 274 pages

Fifteen-year-old Lizzie Vogel simply wants a bit of pocket money when she applies for a part-time job as a nurse's aide at Paradise Lodge, a convalescent home in Leicestershire. But after the manager abruptly leaves and Paradise Lodge begins to deteriorate, Lizzie starts spending more and more time at the home, becoming indispensable to the staff and residents, to the detriment of her grades. This is quite possibly the most British book I've ever read, and it was fantastic; the humor, the characters, the ridiculous situations, the overall tone was simply great. A lovely read.

A Murder of Quality

A Murder of Quality, by John Le Carré
146 pages

To read this book after you've read some of Le Carré's later works, specifically the Karla trilogy or the Spy Who Came in from the Cold, is to feel as though you're in spinoff territory.  That's because in A Murder of Quality, Le Carre's most known and beloved recurring character - the grounded, unassuming and observant George Smiley - is not putting his wits towards some brilliant espionage action, or rooting out a mole in MI6, but spending a weekend looking into the murder of a woman at an insular England boy's school.  The result is not bad at all.  A Murder of Quality, Le Carré's second novel, is a decent, light read, but lacks the intensity and potent intrigue of later works.

Le Carré's prose is as clear, descriptive, and elegant as always.  He also does a wonderful job of fleshing out the full snobbery of the staff at Carne, the school in which the murder takes place.  He weaves together plot twists with a nascent intricacy that becomes a fully realized staple in later books, but in the end, I just didn't care as much about what happened here.  The book's saving grace is George Smiley. Those who've been introduced to him in one or other of Le Carré's novels have likely developed a fascination with him and how he goes about solving problems.  At times he's like a still, much less flamboyant version of Sherlock Holmes; he politely asks the questions, and shuffles about with what we speculate is an assumed diffidence, while working it all out behind his "owlish" spectacles.

It's a short read, so you won't regret the time spent, and it's a pretty decent book.  It's simply outshone by most other works of Le Carré.

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, by John Le Carré
224 pages


I read this book a few years back, and just finished revisiting it.  Nothing's changed, it's still awesome.

Alec Leamas is a spy for the British Secret Intelligence Service during the Cold War.  Operating from Berlin, all of his agents in Eastern Germany have been neutralized, and now he heads back to London  to spend the remainder of his service as a washed-up paper-pusher.  The director of the Circus, as it is colloquially known,  has another proposition for Alec - an operation to take down the ruthless head of the East German intelligence service.  What follows is a deftly executed and thrilling spy procedural, emphasizing a war of the minds rather than devolving into the gung-ho gadgetry contemporarily associated with spy fiction.

The author, John Le Carré, actually had a career in the British intelligence apparatus.  Contrary to what I would prejudge about the writing ability of someone who spent his life in government bureaucracy, Le Carré has true literary talent.  I cannot overstate how well this story is written.  The prose is clear, descriptive, and focused - meaning he never digresses into exploring extraneous characters or sub-plots, nor does he attempt some greater geopolitical moralizing.  I appreciate that.   What I appreciate more is Le Carré doesn't underestimate the intelligence of the reader; he utilizes a subtle, ironic tone to indicate that things aren't as they appear to be.  The third person narrative doesn't give us a full picture of what's going on, but rather places us right next to Alec in a cloudy world of deception and compartmentalization where we as readers are at times necessarily "lost", just like Alec is.  Never is being "lost" a deterrent or frustrating, because the plot unfolds suavely and yet brutally, like a gentlemanly interrogation, each layer of deception being peeled back beautifully until we reach a climactic moment of revelation that absolutely has to be experienced to be appreciated.  It's genius. 

I cannot say enough good things about this book.  I unequivocally recommend it.