A British Crime Classic, first published in 1939. This was interesting, although I ended up thinking it's also sort of odd. The preface to my copy gives some history about Farjeon and his writing; he was pretty successful in his day.
The opening pages are very funny and creepy at the same time. Farjeon gives us a lot of witty conversation, and Kendall teasing his Sergeant is just classic. The pacing could be more even, the whole middle of the book just drops to a crawl, and then it picks up again at the end. I'm guessing at the time this was written you were supposed to know a modicum of French - there's a few pages of mostly French dialogue. But not crucial to the plot, and I got the gist of it anyway. And I like modern female characters better, as Dora Fenner is your basic helpless maiden, incapable of dealing with a fright without collapsing to the floor. From there it gets really improbable, but Farjeon pulls it off with panache. I'm still not sure what happened to the cats though.
The opening pages are very funny and creepy at the same time. Farjeon gives us a lot of witty conversation, and Kendall teasing his Sergeant is just classic. The pacing could be more even, the whole middle of the book just drops to a crawl, and then it picks up again at the end. I'm guessing at the time this was written you were supposed to know a modicum of French - there's a few pages of mostly French dialogue. But not crucial to the plot, and I got the gist of it anyway. And I like modern female characters better, as Dora Fenner is your basic helpless maiden, incapable of dealing with a fright without collapsing to the floor. From there it gets really improbable, but Farjeon pulls it off with panache. I'm still not sure what happened to the cats though.
Ron K. (WhidbeyIslander) -
A strange book that up until the denouement I thought I was going to say "Didn't Like It." But I didn't like some parts -- those in France, for example. I also thought the relationship between the hero (not the detective) and the heroine was a bit far-fetched, and the author seemed to have little regard for females. (The heroine swoons a bit too much and is so malleable that it was hard to believe.) Not one of the better British Library Crime Classics.
