Springing Into Horror with Agatha Christie,the sisters Bronte and Kinsey Millhone

While spring itself is taking it's own sweet time in getting here, my Spring Into Horror readathon is fortunately in full bookish bloom. As of this morning, I've finished three books, started a new one and a good deal of the way into two more.

To start with, my first completed read was Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile, which is already planned to be remade into a new Kenneth Branaugh film(following up his take on Murder on the Orient Express).

This is a Hercule Poirot story, where he is on vacation in Egypt and the messy outcome of a love triangle boils over into murder almost before his eyes. When wealthy heiress and newlywed Linnet Ridgeway is found shot dead in the head in her cruiser cabin, the first suspect to come to mind already has a seemingly solid alibi.

Linnet and her new husband Simon Doyle have been stalked on their honeymoon by Jacqueline" Jackie" de Bellefort,  a former friend who had been engaged to Simon and introduced him to Linnet, even asking her to get him a job on her estate.

However, Linnet saw an opportunity to marry a man who wasn't as wealthy as she was(who would have no choice but to let her be in charge)and stole him away from her gal pal.

Poirot is asked to assist early on with Jackie by both husband and wife, the former wishing that his ex-love would just "be sensible" about the whole thing. Granted, some of this behavior is not what it appears to be yet a good deal of discussion is given to the notion of how a woman should act under such circumstances and that she "ought to take it like a man."

I suspect that Christie was snarking on the hypocrisy of that attitude,given that most men of that time period(or nowadays) wouldn't be so accepting of a similar situation that did not end in their favor.

While this is mainly laying the groundwork for the murder that takes place later on, I found this to be an interesting bit of character detail offered up for the reader's consumption:

Anyhow, at the time of Linnet's murder, both Jackie and Simon were incapacitated due to an incident onboard the ship's bar that had her shooting Simon in the leg.

That doesn't completely rule them out as suspects yet Poirot does show some sympathy for Jackie's plight. Their conversations,both before and after the death of Linnet, have Poirot cautioning the distraught young woman not to let things go too far, more for her sake than anything else.

You do get the sense that M.Poirot is genuinely concerned for her well being, not merely because she isn't acting "feminine", rather that his years of experience tell him that Jackie is heading down a path of self destruction and the best he can do is offer her fair warning. That touch of humanity does make Poirot quite relatable indeed:

All in all, the book is a satisfying read, especially with all of the engaging side characters provided as other suspects such as the mother and son who may be connected to a gang of jewel thieves and the beleaguered daughter of a romance writer.

Just recently, I watched the 1978 movie adaptation of DOTN(with Peter Ustinov as his always excellent Poirot), which is a lot of fun despite the omission of a few minor characters(the mother and son) and rewriting of a couple of small plot points.

The main mystery is still intact and there is plenty of fun to be had with such feisty supporting players as Bette Davis and Maggie Smith(as a bitchy widow and her equally bitchy nurse companion) and in particular, Angela Lansbury as Salome Otterbourne, an over the top and down on her luck authoress with too fond of a taste for strong drink. The new version of DOTN is going to have a fine time casting someone just as charmingly scene stealing for that role:

I also finished Bloodstains with Bronte, the second book in Katherine Bolger Hyde's Crimes with the Classics series.

When former literature professor Emily Cavanaugh learns of a real murder at the murder mystery party she's hosting for charity, her thoughts immediately turn to the works of the Bronte sisters.

The prime suspect is her young housekeeper Katie, who found the body and has a very Heathcliff type of would be protector pursuing her. To make matters worse, Emily's insistence that Katie is innocent causes a riff between her and Luke Richards, town sheriff and renewed love interest.

The story is nicely done(although I figured out who the killer was way ahead of the characters) and I did like that Emily's conflict with Luke was partly resolved by the influence of a Jane Eyre reread. I prefer Jane Eyre to Wuthering Heights(and so does Emily, which gives her bonus points in my book) so seeing that particular novel play a key role there was grand for me:

At the moment, I'm partway between The Terror(which is going to take much longer to read but well worth it) and A is for Alibi, the first of the late great Sue Grafton's Alphabet Mysteries.

Kinsey Millhone, her leading lady, is one savvy detective and definitely no one's fool. Her brisk take on the case of Nikki Fife, who went to prison for the murder of Lawrence, her vicious lawyer husband, has a strong no nonsense air about it.

 She knows how to talk to people and slowly yet surely gather her evidence, giving you the feeling that her job is more of a calling than anything else.

Even when she's doing a side case to check some possible insurance fraud, Kinsey has a real love for this work that shines through her professional persona. At this point, I know that I will finish this book and maybe read a couple more of this series, as the writing is surefire solid. Grafton never wanted her books to be adapted for film or TV( a wish which her family will honor) but if they were, Frances McDormand would be my choice to play Kinsey.

Granted, her cop in Fargo was more of a sweetheart than Kinsey but McDormand possesses that same sense of self confidence and surety that both of these fictional crime solvers have to possess in abundance. They certainly would be a great tag team for questioning folks, that's for sure:

I hope that everyone else taking part in the Spring Into Horror readathon is doing just as well or even better. Reading like this does relieve some of the tension out there these days, plus it adds a good jolt to your day.

This morning, I finished another Agatha Christie(The Body in the Library, a Miss Marple tale) and took up Cleo Coyle's new Coffeehouse Mystery title, Dead to the Last Drop. I don't know, it feels like the time to have coffee,coffee,coffee!: