Marilyn's Mystery Reads

About Marilyn

December 9, 2011

Last week was the final session of my course A Sense of Scene: Murder ‘Round the World. The course consisted of ten sessions, ninety minutes each, in which we discussed a mystery novel that we had read for that week.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we covered a lot of ground–France, Mesopotamia, Saudi Arabia, a Navajo Reservation, Quebec, Venice, Jerusalem, Alaska, Russia, and Iceland.

We had wonderful class discussions led by our group leader, Nancy Rawson, a former librarian.  I had read several of the novels previously, although most of those some time ago.  What struck me was that, in discussing many of the books, there was a huge difference of opinion. Several of the novels (Finding Nouf, Death in a Strange Country, and Jar City) received almost unanimous praise from the class members.  But some of others (The Bar on the Seine, A Cold Day for Murder, The Winter Queen) provoked a variety of opinions among us.

Some people thought a particular book had a great sense of scene, others didn’t.  Some liked the narrative in a book, others thought that same narrative was not very well written.

As someone who has strong opinions about which books are worth reading and recommending and which are not, I was surprised by the differences of opinion, especially when they differed from mine.  It’s definitely humbling to realize that although one may feel that she has made her point so clearly, others are not convinced.

What I also found interesting was that Nancy hadn’t always chosen the strongest book in a series or the strongest book by a certain author.  As per the title of the course, she said she chose a book more for its setting than its plot or its characters.  I don’t know that it made a difference in too many instances, but it definitely did in one case.

The Agatha Christie novel that we read, Murder in Mesopotamia, was probably the least favorite book of the majority of the class.  As a devoted A.C. fan this saddened me, although I had to agree that this mystery certainly was not one of her best; actually, it was one of her weakest.

But it did prove an important point to me, that just as the cliche “you can’t judge a book by its cover” is true, so it is true that you can’t judge an author by only one of his/her works. Even Shakespeare didn’t write a masterpiece every time.

So, in parting, I’d say that if a friend enthusiastically recommends an author and/or a book and you read it and don’t agree, give that author another chance. You may be pleasantly surprised by the next book.  And if you’re not, just chalk it up to an honest difference of opinion.  Then recommend your favorite author to that friend and see what happens.

Marilyn

As I wrote in my August 27th post, I’m taking a course on international murder mysteries. So far we’ve read books set in Italy, Mesopotamia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and France, and we still have several more weeks of class.  Yeah!

One of the handouts that our instructor, Nancy Rawson, gave to the class is a piece by John Ydstie, a host on National Public Radio. Mr. Ydstie talks about the “spoiler alert,” something I’m sure we’ve all come across in reading reviews of movies, books, plays, etc.

Basically, Mr. Ydstie says that researchers have found that good writing trumps plot and that people who read stories where they know the end enjoy those stories just as much as people reading the story for the first time. I agree and disagree at the same time, if that’s possible.

I’ve taken to reading only the first third or half of movie and books reviews, fearful that the reviewer is going to tell me more than I want to know.  That has happened on more than one occasion, and it did spoil the book/movie for me; if it’s a movie I want to see or a book that’s new to me, I don’t want to know the ending.

That being said, once I’ve read a mystery and (hopefully) have been surprised, I’m very willing to read that book again at a later date, perhaps more than once. I’ve read all of the books in my Golden Oldies section more than once; indeed, I’ve read a couple of them more than twice.  And I’ve enjoyed each one each time I’ve read it.

So I guess I do agree with the psychologists who say that knowing the ending of a book doesn’t spoil it for the reader; it all depends on whether or not the book is well-written.  And sometimes the second reading is better than the first.

Marilyn

A good/great novel for me is one in which I truly care about the characters.

I just read When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson, whose mystery One Good Turn I reviewed last week.  I don’t plan to review When Will There Be Good News? other than to say it’s wonderful.  What I want to do is to comment on the importance of characters in a novel, even in the mystery genre where the plot is usually paramount.

As readers of my blog know, I’m a huge fan of Agatha Christie and Rex Stout (see my appreciations in Past Masters and Mistresses) and other Golden Age writers, but most of their characters, except for the detectives, are cardboard, interchangeable pieces who are important to the plot but who don’t touch you as real people.  But Ms. Atkinson’s characters are so real, so human, that you can empathize or criticize or admire them as if they existed in real life. When you are reading a book and one of the characters is shot, kidnapped, or otherwise hurt, and you hear yourself give a gasp of fear or horror or surprise–then you know that the author has created living, breathing characters. Conversely, when one of the characters you like falls in love, escapes from a perilous place, or solves the crime, and you find you have a smile on your face–you know the author knows how to touch his/her readers.

The two mysteries by Kate Atkinson that I’ve read (there’s another one in between these two) seem to me to be complete circles. I mean that in the best possible way, that the novels are complete.  When you get to the end you feel the story has reached its natural conclusion.  Even if, as is the case in When Will There Be Good News? and One Good Turn, the very last lines are a complete surprise, they make perfect sense and complete the novels’ circles.

It’s a joy to read books like these.

Marilyn

I’ve signed up for a course on mystery novels at Brandeis University’s BOLLI (Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute).  BOLLI is a nation-wide program offering dozens of courses during the year ranging from literature to politics to science to drama.  I have several friends who have been taking classes for years, and every report I heard was positive.  So now that I’m retired, I have the freedom to take some of the courses that are offered.

When I read the fall catalog I couldn’t believe my good luck.  On Thursdays, one of my “free” days, a course was being offered with the title “A Sense of Place:  Murder Mysteries ‘Round the World.” The course is ten weeks long, each week focusing on a different writer and country/city.  We’ll be reading Donna Leon (Death in a Strange Country, Venice), Agatha Christie (Murder in Mesopotamia, Mesopotamia), Batya Gur (The Saturday Morning Murder, Israel), Zoe Ferraris (Finding Nouf, Saudi Arabia), Georges Simenon (The Bar on the Seine, Paris), Tony Hillerman (Skinwalkers, Navajo Reservation), Louise Penny (Still Life, Quebec), Dana Stabenow (A Cold Day for Murder, Alaska), Boris Akunin (The Winter Queen, Russia), and Arnaldur Indridason (Jar City, Iceland).

The only writer in this group I haven’t read is Zoe Ferraris, but although I’ve read many books by the other authors I’ve only read four of the novels that we’ll be reading for the course.  So the majority of the books will be first-time reads, very exciting.

I’ll keep you informed as to how the class is going.  I’m really looking forward to it.

Marilyn

About a month ago, my sister e-mailed to tell me about a new bookstore that had opened in the town she lives in.  When she said it was called Mainely Murders, she definitely got my attention.

On Saturday, Barbara Ann and I went to check it out.  Mainely Murders is located in a converted barn/carriage house behind the home of the two women who own it.  Paula Keeney and Ann Whetstone couldn’t have been friendlier or more helpful to us.  Paula walked us around the small store, explaining how the books are set up on the shelves–Maine novels, books by “dead American writers” to quote Paula, international mysteries, and niche mysteries such as those specializing in cooking, horse racing, knitting, etc.

The first book I picked up was The Demon of Dakar by Kjell Ericksson.  I had read the Princess of Berundi by him and enjoyed it, so I opened the flap to see how much The Demon was.  I was surprised by the low price and asked Ann how they could sell this $24.95 book for $7.50.  “Well,” she told me, “it’s been read before.”  All the books in the story are used, or pre-owned, or read before, or whatever term you prefer. The books all looked in pristine condition to me, and I could hardly believe that someone (or perhaps more than one person) had read them.  Even the paperbacks looked brand-new.  I guess not everyone reads while eating fried chicken, not mentioning names.

Anyway, I walked out of Mainely Murders with four hard covered books and three paperbacks, for a total of $71.00 dollars. Only the thought of my husband and brother-in-law waiting back at the house for us made me leave the shop.  I don’t know whether I was more excited by having bought three books by authors previously unfamiliar to me or having bought the second book (Trespasser) by Maine author Paul Doiron, whose book The Poacher’s Son I reviewed in June 2010.

At any rate, if you’re anywhere in Maine, especially if you’re close to Kennebunk, check out Mainely Murders.  They have a wonderful web site and newsletter too.

Marilyn

I don’t know why I almost always find short stories less interesting than full-length novels, but I do.

I read somewhere that the short story is the perfect form in which to tell a story.  The writer must make every word count and, I suppose, can’t drift off-subject or bring in totally extraneous things that have nothing to do with the plot.

Now maybe I’m wrong, but I believe that bringing in things that (apparently) don’t have anything to do with the main plot is part of the joy of reading. It’s like talking to a friend, where one thing leads to another, and it’s more interesting that way.

It’s kind of like reading a map, although anyone who knows me knows that’s not one of my strengths.  My husband and I just returned from a wonderful vacation in Spain.  We were going from Barcelona to the Costa Brava; he was driving and I was reading the map.  Now even I knew that the town we were looking for, S’Agaro, being on the Costa Brava, would be on or very close to the coast.  You’d know that, right?  But in my anxiety about my lack of skill in reading the map of Spain, I never unfolded it all the way, and I kept telling my husband to follow the signs for Girona because that was the biggest town in the direction we were going and because we had plans to go there the day after our arrival on the coast.

Well, in fact Girona is miles inland from the coast, and because the Costa Brava didn’t appear on the portion of the map I had in front of me, of course I couldn’t find S’Agaro.  It took a couple of stops at gas stations and talks with one very sweet taxi driver to find S’Agaro and the hotel where we were staying.  Here let me say that the people in Spain are truly friendly and helpful and very patient with someone who was determined to practice her Spanish, even in conversations with people who obviously spoke English.

Now you’re probably wondering what my misadventure in Spain has to do with short stories. Well, if you’re honest you found that little detour (metaphorically and logistically speaking) interesting; at least I hope you did.  And it’s because the story didn’t take a straight route from Barcelona to S’Agaro–it was the stopping at gas stations and talking to a taxi driver that hopefully made our trip a bit real to you.  And that’s why I find mystery novels more enjoyable than mystery short stories.  It’s more interesting, if more time-consuming, to go from here-to-there-to-there-to-final destination than simply to go directly from here to final destination.  And a short story, by definition, can’t spend much time wandering about; it has to get to the conclusion within a given number of words or pages.

The only exception that comes to mind is Sherlock Holmes. While we were in Spain I read all of the Holmes stories on my Kindle.  The stories are superior to the four full-length novels, in my opinion.  They give me a clearer insight into Holmes than the novels do, and the stories never seem rushed or squeezed into a box.  But other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I can’t think of an author whose stories are better than his/her novels. Can you?

Marilyn

The March 30/April 4 combined double issue of Newsweek has an opinion piece by Susan Cheever entitled “Please Stop Writing!”

I can totally identify with her opening sentence, “Mysteries are my weakness.” Me too, Ms. Cheever.  Sometimes I’m a bit embarrassed when checking out books at my local library–I’ll have three or four mysteries novels in one hand and a couple of mysteries on cds in the other.  I want to say to the librarians, all of whom I know quite well, “I do read other things, you know.”  I’ve even thought about taking out Plato’s Republic or Carl Sandburg’s Lincoln biographies to impress them, but I know I’d return those books unread.

Ms. Cheever’s point is that after a number of mysteries in a series, which she arbitrarily notes as eight, authors tend to run out of ideas.  Or the ideas they have are not so very good any longer.

I’m not sure that there should be an arbitrary number at which an author must automatically stop writing about a specific character, but I do agree that as time goes by it apparently gets more difficult to write new situations for the protagonist.  This relates to a previous About Marilyn column (November 4, 2010), “How To Get Rid of An Unwanted Love Interest.”   A detective meets and falls in love with a beautiful woman (as I noted in that column, this is almost always a male issue).  They begin a relationship, or even get married, and after a number of books the author feels the need for a new romantic interest.  So he/she bumps the woman off.  There is much sobbing, gnashing of teeth, grief, but the detective is free to find another woman and begin all over again.

So there the author has recognized that the detective’s romance is in need of updating to keep the series fresh. But that same author doesn’t see the same problem with his hero.  The hero, as Ms. Cheever says, may also be past his sell-by date, but he keeps on solving crimes.  Although I was a huge Robert B. Parker fan from the beginning, I feel that after Looking for Rachel Wallace, Spenser was finished.  All the clever repartee had been said, and in spite of myself I kept visualizing a 70-plus Spenser saying his naughty words to a 60-plus Susan Silverman.  It just didn’t work for me.

So although I doubt many mystery writers are sitting home, breathlessly awaiting my latest About Marilyn column, just in case one is….Think hard about whether your hero/heroine may be ready to be retired. That doesn’t mean you need to retire; there’s always the opportunity to write a new series with a lead character totally different from the one who made you famous.  It’s worth a try.

Marilyn

After slightly more than a year of blogging, I’ve come to the conclusion that there really is an art to the perfect review. I’m not saying I’ve mastered perfection yet, but I do know what not to do.

When I read a review of a novel or a film, I frequently stop after the first paragraph or two.  That’s because too often I’ve had the experience of finding out more of the plot from the review or synopsis than I wanted to know.

I recently read a mystery, nameless here to protect the author of the back cover’s blurb, which gave away the fact that there was a second murder and told the reader who the victim was.  What made this especially upsetting was the fact that the novel was 350 pages long and the second murder didn’t take place until more than half way through, on page 182.

As it happened in this case, I hadn’t looked at the back cover at all before starting the book.  In fact, I had just finished the chapter in which the second killing took place when I decided to read the back of the novel.

What was the point of giving the reader or prospective reader such a plot spoiler before he or she read the book? It certainly would have killed the suspense for me if I hadn’t already reached that chapter.

There’s a fine line between not giving the potential reader enough of a teaser to whet that person’s interest versus giving out too much information and spoiling everything.  I hope I usually manage to get it right; if I don’t, please let me know.

Marilyn

I don’t believe I know any girl or woman who didn’t grow up reading Nancy Drew.  Just mention her name and a whole host of other names pops into one’s mind–her father, Carson Drew; her housekeeper, Hannah Gruen; her two best friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne; and her sometimes boyfriend, Ned Nickerson.

I started reading the series when I was about nine or ten.  As I remember it, I started with the first one, The Secret of the Old Clock, and continued on, in no particular order, until The Ringmaster’s Secret.  That was number 31, and at that point I had “outgrown” the series.

But I never forgot it, and I think I can still tell you the plots of most, if not all, of the books.  And I certainly remember which were my favorites.  Everything I know about Gypsies (Roma) I learned from The Clue in the Jewel Box; everything I know about campanology I learned from The Mystery of the Tolling Bell. Hmm, I wonder if the people writing the series under the name Carolyn Keene got their facts straight.

What brought this to mind was the the book my book club is currently reading, Infidel. It’s the fascinating memoir of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s journey from her homeland in Somalia to Kenya and Ethiopia, then her flight to Holland to avoid living with the husband her father had chosen for her over her objections, and finally to the United States.

Her education in Africa was sporadic, learning a different language in each country, sometimes being home-schooled and sometimes going to all-girls or co-ed Muslim schools, depending on where she lived.  It was in Nairobi that Ms. Ali discovered Nancy Drew and “the stories of pluck and independence.” I imagine the novels must have seemed like fairy tales, with Nancy dressed in Western clothes, driving her own car, traveling by herself, and generally doing what she pleased.  This was a life so different from the life that the young Ayaan saw all around her that it would have seemed incredible.  But something in these books touched her and awakened a curiosity about the world outside the one she knew.

This is what I find wonderful about reading in general and mysteries in particular.  My own life has very little in common with Agatha Christie’s English villages, Alexander McCall Smith’s Botswana, or Colin Cotterill’s war-torn Laos.  But reading takes me to all these places and gives me a glimpse of lives lived there. And I feel richer for it.

Marilyn

I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. I’ve read several of McCarthy’s other books–All the Pretty Horses and No Country for Old Men among them–so I knew I wasn’t going to be reading a children’s story.  Even if I hadn’t known the type of books McCarthy writes, the subtitle of this book would have given it away–The Evening Redness in the West.  And the redness referred to isn’t the sunset.

Now, I’m used to murder and mayhem; after all, I’m writing a blog about mysteries, right?  But the number of dead bodies in Blood Meridian is beyond counting. The story is based on the Glanton Gang, a historical group of scalp hunters in 1849-50, immediately following the Mexican-American War.  The gang, led by John Joel Glanton, was hired by the Mexican government to kill marauding Indians and bring their scalps to the authorities to receive payment.  But soon the gang was murdering peaceful Indians and Mexican civilians to increase their totals and, as it appears to me, just for the joy of killing.  Eventually the government of Chihuahua offered a reward for the capture of the gang, turning them from semi-legal mercenaries to outlaws.

With a background story like that, Blood Meridian could hardly be sweetness and light.  But there’s not one character in the novel to whom I was drawn.  The Kid, who opens the novel, might have been that character.   After all, he comes from an abusive home from which he runs away at the age of fourteen, unable to read or write and without any skills except shooting.  He has to make his way in the world, and he does so by joining this para-military group.  But The Kid’s participation in dozens of ruthless killings robs him of any connection with this reader.  It was impossible for me to feel anything but antipathy toward him, toward Glanton, or toward Judge Holden, the book’s portrait of pure evil.

Yet the reviews of Blood Meridian are superlative.  No less a literary authority than Professor Harold Bloom of Yale University has declared it “the major esthetic achievement of any living American writer.”

So this is my point, or rather my question.  Even if there is stirring, evocative language in such a book, some of it quite beautiful, is it possible for a reader to enjoy it, to recommend it, to feel that it has been a worthwhile reading experience, when that reader feels no empathy, no attachment, no sympathy for a single character in it? It reminds me of a time years ago when a friend had read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and said to me, “I feel as if I’ve just spent the afternoon with a murderer.”  Although Blood Meridian isn’t a mystery, enough blood flows through it for a dozen crime novels.

Frankly, at the end of  this book, when every character except one has been killed, I thought “serves them right.  Too bad the judge is still alive.”  And that’s not the way I want to feel at the end of a book.

So while I’m happy to air my opinion, I’d like to hear from you. Am I alone in feeling that there has to be some connection between a reader and at least one character in the book?  Or does no one else care about this?  Let me know.

Marilyn

There should be a course entitled “How to Get Rid of an Unwanted Love Interest” offered to mystery authors.

Apparently every male detective (barring Catholic clergy and overweight New York eccentrics) needs a girlfriend/wife/love interest to spice up the novel and prove the detective’s masculinity.  That’s all well and good.

But the problem is–how do you get rid of that pesky woman when the author no longer wants/needs her? What to do, what to do.  Well, here are the ways three authors handled it.

Jeremiah Healy took the Road of No Return. When the first John Francis Cuddy novel was published, Cuddy is a newly bereaved man, his young wife having died shortly before the story begins.  After a few books Cuddy becomes romantically involved with another woman, and they have a serious relationship over the next several books.  But then she is killed in a plane crash (never mind all the other people who had to die along with her), and Cuddy is alone again.

William G. Tapply chose to go with Who Can Understand A Woman Anyway? His Boston lawyer/detective is divorced when the series opens and stays unattached for a while.  Brady Coyne finally meets someone special, they are together for a number of books, even moving in together, but in the last novel she leaves him.  No explanation, at least none that made sense to me.

Stuart M. Kaminsky made the hero of the Lew Fonesca books A Man Who Will Hurt Forever. In the first book Lew has just relocated to Florida to escape the memories of his wife’s death by a hit-and-run driver.  Later on, when he does meet a woman, he’s obviously unable to commit to any type of meaningful relationship with her, and eventually she moves away.

I can’t think of similar situations involving female detectives. Sharon McCone starts out single in Marcia Muller’s series but meets and then marries her lover.  And Kinsey Millhone (Sue Grafton) and V. I. Warshawski (Sara Paretsky) have had a man or two in their lives, but they don’t become the problem for the women detectives that the women seem to be for the male detectives.

There are definitely exceptions to the male detective generalizations above.  Susan Silverman in the Spenser series, Kerry in the Nameless Detective series, and Zee in the J. W. Jackson series, to name just three.  But still, that being said, female romantic interests in the lives of male detectives don’t seem to hang around for very long.

Ladies, beware!

Marilyn

Hi.  True to my word in my September 6th post, I’m letting you know that there’s a new post in the About Marilyn section of this blog. If you click on About Marilyn under the graphic of me and my imaginary cat, you’ll be able to read my thoughts about starting but not finishing mystery novels.

Marilyn

I am definitely getting less patient as I get older.

I used to think that if I started a book that I had to finish it.  I thought that if the author had spent so much time and energy writing the novel and getting it published that I owed it to him or her to read it even if I wasn’t enjoying it.  But I no longer feel that way.

A few years ago I bought a sweatshirt with the words “So Many Books, So Little Time.” That’s become my mantra.  There are simply too many good, not to say excellent, books available for me to force myself to finish one that I’m not enjoying.  If I’m not “into” the book after a couple of chapters, I’ll put it down and choose another.

It’s a bit like eating a meal in a restaurant or buying a pair of shoes.

You go into a restaurant or shoe store (bookstore or library), look at the menu or the racks (bookshelves), and choose a meal or a pair of shoes (crime novel) you think you want to eat or wear (read).  But when the meal comes or you put the shoes on (start reading) you realize it’s not what you want because the entree is too spicy or the shoes are too tight (or the book is too cozy, too violent, or just boring).

Just like you wouldn’t force yourself to finish a meal that you didn’t like or buy a pair of shoes that didn’t fit, you shouldn’t make yourself finish a book that’s not what you thought it was going to be.

And you shouldn’t feel guilty about it–I don’t.

Marilyn

Have you ever thought much about sidekicks? I hadn’t, until recently.

In films and television, sidekicks are the ones who usually aren’t as good-looking as the hero, never or almost never get the girl or guy, and never get the glory.  Think about it.  There’s the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Roy Rogers and Gabby Hayes, Lucy and Ethel.  Am I right?

In mystery novels, things were pretty much the same.  There’s Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, C. Auguste Dupin and Poe’s nameless narrator, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.  In the last case there’s a bit more equality, but even though Archie is younger, better-looking, and as narrator could emphasize his importance in the case, he’s always a step behind Wolfe.  Yes, in these novels Archie has the girl, but Lily Rowan is more like arm candy than a true love interest, always available to go dancing or have dinner at Rusterman’s, but that’s all.

In earlier books the sidekicks usually were subordinate in every way to the detective, as I mentioned above, especially when it came to who was the toughest guy in the room.  But, interestingly, the sidekick’s role has changed over the years.  I think this began with Spenser and Hawk.  Spenser certainly is tough and knows his way around criminals and low-lifes, but he has a moral center.  Enter Hawk.  When we first meet him, he’s a killer for hire.  And although he’s mellowed in the course of the novels, he still behaves in ways that Spenser can’t or won’t.  Spenser can do breaking and entering, but Hawk can do breaking bones.  That’s why Spenser needs him.

And here’s another facet of the new breed of sidekick.  There was a similarity between the roles of Spenser and Hawk and Elvis Cole and Joe Pike.  Pike’s conscience, like his eyes behind dark sunglasses, is hidden.  There are, or were, things that Cole didn’t do, but Pike did.  Now, however, that Pike has moved on to his own series, he, like Hawk, has gotten softer and isn’t so quick on the trigger.  If Pike is going to be the new hero, he can’t behave like the old sidekick.

We know that certain things, unpleasant and illegal things, may have to be done in order to solve a crime. But we don’t seem to want our hero, and it’s always a hero, not a heroine, to do them.  We don’t want his hands to be so dirty that they can’t be cleaned.  That’s apparently what his sidekick is for.

So what does this say about us as readers of detective novels?

Marilyn

If something is perfect, why change it?

My husband and I were on Cape Cod on July 11, and I read in The Boston Globe that Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express would be shown on PBS that night.  Now, as far as I’m concerned, Ms. Christie was/is The Queen of Mysteries.  I know, I know, the Golden Age style is no longer in vogue.  Now we need serial killers (see my July 7 post), sexual perversions, and child abuse to make a best seller.  But no one, past or present, could toss those red herrings around like Dame Agatha.

Very excited to see a new version of this classic novel, I sat through an hour-long promo of David Suchet going for a ride on the Orient Express.  I’m guessing he’s a Method Actor and needed to experience the train before he “became” Hercule Poirot.  I must admit that I’ve never been the biggest Suchet fan, but then I’ve never seen a Poirot I thought was authentic.

Anyhow, at 9 p.m. I was ready to view this mystery classic.  And was I disappointed! I thought that Suchet was acting as if he had a hyperactivity problem.  His facial expressions, his gestures, were so unlike the refined, mannered Belgian detective as to be almost (almost) humorous.  I keep waiting for him to calm down, to remember the character he was playing, but no such luck.

Of course, I don’t know if this (mis)characterization of the great detective was the author’s fault or the director’s.  But either way it was wrong, wrong, wrong.  There wasn’t a bit of Christie’s character in this production.

My feeling is, if you’re going to change the character or plot of a novel when you bring it to film or television, perhaps you should simply invent a new character.  Leave the old one alone and come up with your own idea.

And that way you won’t even have to pay royalties!

Marilyn