The Quiet Tenant / Clemence Michallon

 

3 out of 5 stars 

How the hell do I rate a book like this? I swear that I'm not going to read any more serial killer books and then a new one gets published and my brain says, “Oh, shiny!” This novel was gripping. It was tense, especially toward the end. It was grimly, awfully believable.

Pluses: it was all related from the women's points of view. His daughter, his captive, and his girlfriend/soon to be next victim. It fairly portrayed what we are willing to do in order to stay alive. It fairly depicts how we women with psychological damage can be manipulated by a practiced offender. Speaking from personal experience, if you have a controlling man in your family, it feels like something you know how to deal with. It feels familiar. You think you know what you're getting into. You don't. And these offenders have radar for the women with this kind of background.

Minuses: these books always make me debate their merit. Do we need more books featuring criminals like Aidan Thomas? Do they do anyone any good? Or do they just turn us into voyeurs? Is this a tribute to the bravery and resilience of Rachel? Or I am I just thankful that it's her and not me?

In the end, I don't know the answers to any of these questions. I don't know what star rating to assign. My thought is to go middle of the road. Three stars.

Childhood's End / Arthur C. Clarke

 

4 out of 5 stars 

It's been over a decade since I last read Childhood's End and it was worth revisiting. Clarke was one of the celebrated authors of the sci-fi genre during the so-called Golden Age. And I was just as absorbed by this novel this time around as the previous outings. This despite Clarke's writing style, which I can only describe as chilly and overly logical. If aliens like the Overlords were to read this book, they would believe humans to be little swayed by emotion, basing their behaviour on rational thought, rather unlike the excitable, irrational people that I see regularly on the news.

Clarke also breaks one of those oft quoted rules of writers, to show rather than telling. He tells us an awful lot and his characters obey his decrees without protest. Women are few and far between, with Jean being the most prominent, both for proving humankind's suitability for future development and for producing the children who will lead the way. Beyond that, she gets relegated to the roles of housewife and mother, a great waste. I never felt like I knew any of the characters intimately and didn't feel much connection to them. I wasn't the slightest bit concerned as they were eliminated one by one.

What to make of humankind's ultimate end? Is it a good or a bad thing? Clarke portrays it as a desirable outcome, but I guess I'm too much of an individualist for it to sit comfortably. The universe is undoubtedly a huge and terrifying thing, but I love this blue and green planet where we live and I have no desire to abandon it. Are the misnamed Overlords to be pitied because they retain their uniqueness and some agency? Frankly I feel like they are getting the better deal.

Nevertheless, I still think this is an important book in the canon of science fiction and that it deserves its place there. I find it somewhat encouraging that even a man as devoted to science as Clarke would write a story with such definite paranormal elements.

4:50 From Paddington / Agatha Christie

 

5 out of 5 stars 

I am a day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes. This was the October book for my Agatha Christie reading group and I did start on Halloween but flaked out before I could finish it. Besides which I was enjoying it too much to hurry and I was under the erroneous impression that I might actually be able to finger the murderer this time. Foolish person that I am! I have the niggling feeling that I have seen the initial scene in some other venue: Elspeth McGillicuddy is on the 4:50 train, which is passed by another train in which she witnesses a man strangling a woman to death. Elspeth arrives on Miss Marple's doorstep convinced that she has been written off by the authorities as a tiresome old lady.

I always enjoy a Marple mystery and this outing adds the remarkable Lucy Eyelesbarrow to Christie's stable of wonderful characters. Of course Miss Marple recruits the younger woman to do her foot work. Searching for corpses is a young woman's game. Lucy can run a stately home like nobody's business and poke through the grounds in her spare time. Miss Marple has used her own resources to procure a map, to ride the same route, and deduce where the dead woman has likely been disposed of. Lucy will be responsible for ground-truthing her theory.

Lucy finagles a job in Rutherford Hall and soon has the whole family (and especially the men folk) eating out of her hand. Once the body is revealed, more mischief happens. Every time I had a suspect in my sights, Christie bumped them off! Also entertaining were the many proposals that Lucy receives along the way. Christie quite cruelly refused to finger the lucky man who wins Lucy (or if one of them manages that task), but she revealed the murderer clearly.

I do wish Lucy had more time to spend with Inspector Craddock, if she had to choose any of these louts!

This is book number 24 of my Read Your Hoard Challenge.