Somebody hasn’t read her Knox

[nineveh_uk]

Let me quote a short passage from the start of chapter VII of Murder Must Advertise (shortly before Charles gets slugged on the staircase):

“[Chief-Inspector Parker] had had a long day at the Yard — no thrills, no interesting disclosures, no exciting visitors, not so much as a dis-diamonded rajah or a sinister Chinaman — only the reading and summarizing of twenty-one reports of interviews with police narks, five hundred and thirteen letters from the public in response to a broadcast S O S about a wanted man, and a score or so of anonymous letters, all probably written by lunatics.”

My copy of The Attenbury Emeralds has arrived, and I am reading it. That a dis-emeralded Rajah has turned up on page 18 probably says all you need to know about its quality. I shall have much to say, but to spare you will save it until the end. It is a bit slow-going because I keep having to stop to say "WTF?TRY(%HDFNW(HGOAT!"

Comments

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Well done for reading it, to save the rest of us from having to.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It is a far, far better thing...

I've tried to be fair about the previous books, I really have, to acknowledge what is done well even where it isn't to my taste, but this one is just wrong.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Wrong enough to be funny, or just cringeworthy?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Cringeworthy, mostly, though there is occasional Oh for God's sake-ing that makes me smile in despair.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

I gloat! I gloat!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

You vulture, you! But honestly, though I never say "the fanfic is better", I'm saying it now. Actually, the fanfic that it is partly based on (now I've got you hooked!) is better.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Green Ice?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

No - that really would be a story! It's a short fanfic play done donkeys years ago as a DLS society entertainment, which I saw at an outing this summer, and which is really quite funny (and properly acknowledged in the intro). But it does suggest that the imaginative genius that went into this particular production is quite limited.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Not only crap, but not even original crap. My schadenfreude overrunneth.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

*hands over mop and bucket*

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Well it has certainly got mine!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I can't recommend it, even as an ordinary book. My generosity comes in not hurling it across the room.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

*continues not buying the book*

*tries High Definition North West Happy Goat*

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Certainly the smell of goat wafts from the pages as if blown by a strong wind.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

Is there a French maid named Celestine? If so, she is doing it on purpose.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

But has there been a sinister Chinaman yet?

[aunty_marion]

Not till chapter 15 at least... (no, I haven't read it)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

She has to save some horrors for after the first 50 pages, I suppose.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Surely even JPW couldn't do a Maharajan and a sinister Chinaman. There was a sort of secret passage, though.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

Actually this is now making me want to read it when I didn't before just to see.

Two days ago I dreamed Jill Paton Walsh was demanding to know how many volumes of Sayers' letters I had read. Must have been a Portent of Doom. Or something.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It is probably worth gazing at in horror. And clearly it is in my interests to lend it to you asap so that I have someone to bitch with.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

I will probably flip through it in the bookstore, but I won't bring it home to contaminate my home library. Perhaps I should bring a pair of my blue nitrile gloves to the bookstore with me - I can throw them out when I'm done.

Can't be too careful, after all.