Category Archives: Moyes, Patricia

Reading Journal: 5.17.26

The weather has been hit and miss in the PNW for the last week, but I’ve been able to get outside and do some weed eradication with my trusty string trimmer. Our very mild winter made the weeds go absolutely bonkers.

I finished 5 books this week.

Murder in Married Life by Anne Morice: this is book 2 in the Tessa Crichton series, published in 1971. Dean Street Press has reprinted 23 entries in the series, through Fatal Charm, published in 1989. I’ve enjoyed both of the installments that I’ve read, and plan to – eventually – buy and read them all. Tessa, a moderately successful actress, meets the man who becomes her husband, Robin, in the first book. In this one, they are newly married.

Robin is a detective for Scotland Yard, and Tessa has a tendency to become embroiled in mysteries, so they are quite a match. This book reminds me a bit of the Mr. and Mrs. North mysteries because Tessa, like Pam North, is a firecracker. The next mystery in the series is called Death of a Gay Dog, and I will get to it. Sooner or later.

Hmmm, interesting. I guess my unwitting theme for this week was “newly married in London,” because that is the entire plot of Greenery Street. Ian and Felicity Foster are newly engaged at the beginning of the book, and are looking for a house in which to commence their married life. Greenery Street itself turns out to be a bit of a character in the book, with Mackail giving it a voice of its own at times, as the place where newly married London couples begin their marriages, only to be forced to move out once the babies start coming.

There is a naivete here that is really charming – Ian and Felicity seem quite a lot like children playing house because in many ways, they are children playing house. Ian has a job, and Felicity manages their finances, but neither of them are remotely jaded, world weary or cynical. They love each other, they love being married, and they are absolutely loyal to each other. They are innocent without being stupid, fun-loving without being reckless, and sweet without being saccharine. This one reminded me a lot of A Fortnight in September, a book about the smallest of things, but utterly riveting nonetheless.

I have been reading the Inspector Henry Tibbet’s series for many years now. I remember picking up the first one, Dead Men Don’t Ski, at the UBS at least two decades ago. I really liked it, and started picking up PB copies when I would find them. I have been vaguely trying to read in order, although at the end of the day, order doesn’t really matter here. Henry, and his wife Emmy (who plays a pretty substantial role in the books) don’t really seem to age. This is the 8th book in the series. Luckily, at this point, Amazon has entries 7 (except for book 9, weirdly) through 17 in the KU library, so I’m going to try to get them read before they disappear. Next up is Who Saw Her Die, which isn’t available through KU, but my library had a digital copy available so I grabbed it.

The plots are always clever, and they usually involve Henry and Emmy getting out of London, where they live, and going to different places. This one was no different – the first chunk of the book was set in London, where Henry is investigating a pretty garden variety murder of a low-grade con artist in the bathroom of a bar called the Pink Parrot. Eventually, though, that investigation merges with some international intrigue concerning a couple of fake African countries, and Henry and Emmy end up in Holland, where there is danger and they meet some murderous foes.

Along with some readerly friends, I am doing a read and reread of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s works for the next couple of years, and we started with the Anne Shirley books in January. We are meant to be doing one a month, but I got behind, so although May is the 5th month, Anne of Windy Poplars is the 4th book in the series, sitting between Anne of the Island and Anne’s House of Dreams. It was written well after those two books – Anne of the Island was published in 1915 and Anne’s House of Dreams was published in 1917, while Anne of Windy Poplars wasn’t published until 1936.

The first time I read Windy Poplars, I was decidedly unimpressed. It’s still not my favorite – I think that Anne of the Island will always hold that honor in my heart. But in subsequent rereads, it has definitely grown on me. I enjoy Rebecca Dew and the Aunts, the Pringles crack me up, I wish that we could have had a book about Katherine Brooke and her life as secretary to a MP, and the Little Fellow makes me cry every damn time. Next up is Anne’s House of Dreams, which covers Anne and Gilbert as young marrieds. I’m hoping to finish that one next week, so I’ll be caught up with my fellow readers.

My last book this week was the third in Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War series, Engaging the Enemy. I’ve previously read Trading in Danger and Marque and Reprisal and I’m really enjoying the series. There are two more in this cycle, and then two books in a different cycle, Vatta’s Peace, that were published much later.

These are really space opera, which is a genre that I don’t read a lot, but get into the mood for from time to time. There is something about it that I really enjoy, when it hits just right. This is a satisfying series and has all of the elements of good space opera: lots of space ship action, different planetary cultures, a tight knit crew, and much suspense and intrigue.

I had never read anything by Elizabeth Moon, and I’m impressed, actually. Her fantasy series that begisn with The Sheep Farmer’s Daughter, The Deed of Paksenarrion, has been on my radar for a while, so once I finish with Kylara Vatta, I’ll probably check that one out. Vatta’s War was published between 2003 and 2008, and the first book in the Paksenarrion series was published in 1988.

In fact, in addition to my “newly married in London” theme from early in the week, all of my books this week, strangely (I just noticed this when I was adding categories) were written by authors whose last name started with the letter M (I swear that this was a coincidence, albeit a really weird one), and all of them were backlist titles. The newest of them, Engaging the Enemy, was published the early 2000’s. One good thing about reading old books – absolute certainty that AI had no part in their creation. I prefer my art human powered, thank you very much. Not to put too fine a point on it, but fuck the tech bros.

Also, in spite of my use of the em-dash, I never use AI to write my posts. I have loved the em-dash since before Chat GPT was a gleam in it’s evil overlord’s eye, and I refuse to give it up.

Currently reading:

American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird – still. This one will sit on this list for a while, because it is 721 pages. I’m at 25%.
Information Received by E.R. Punshon – the first Bobby Owen mystery published in 1933;
Green Rider by Kristen Brittain – reread.

My Vintage Mystery Series: Volume 2

Inspector Henry Tibbet by Patricia Moyes

Why I read it: I first started reading this series years ago, when I picked one up at the UBS. Which one is lost to the sands of time. The first book was published in 1959.

C.I.D. Inspector Henry Tibbets, with his famous “nose” for crime, and his wife Emmy are a delightful pair. The series makes use of their travels – so far, I’ve accompanied them to a posh ski resort in the Italian Alps, a rustic resort on a Caribbean island, an international drug conference in Switzerland, and Emmy’s 20th WAAF reunion. I’ve been collecting the paperbacks as I find them, and I’m up to book 7, Murder Fantastical, which is sitting on my shelf waiting for me.

The Inspector Luke Thanet series by Dorothy Simpson.

Why I read it: I don’t remember how I found this series. I may have picked up an old paperback at the UBS and then, after reading it, found the series was available as some kindle reissues at my local library. The first book was published in 1980, when I was in the 9th grade, but I didn’t read it until the last few years.

The main character is Luke Thanet, a British police inspector. It’s set in Kent, England, and has a total of 15 entries, the last having been published in 1999. Thanet has a sidekick, Sgt. Lineham, who helps him with his investigations. In addition, Luke’s wife, Joan, and his two children feature prominently in the books and they provide an interesting sociological review of changing marriages and mores during a time when women were more actively entering the full-time workforce. Joan is hired as a probation officer in the third book, and Luke occasionally ruminates on how much his internal male compass struggles with having a wife who has interests beyond home and family (i.e., beyond him).

Inspector Banks by Peter Robinson

Why I read it: It might be a little bit of an overstatement to say that I “read” this series, when I’ve actually only read the first book, and that only a few weeks ago. But, Inspector Banks has been on my radar for a while, and I enjoyed the first book enough to check out the next two. Gallows View was published in 1987, and there are a total of 27 books, with a 28th to be published in April. In fact, it’s probably a bit of a misnomer to even call this “vintage” at this point. Although, 1987 was a looong time ago, and it therefore feels pretty vintage to me.

The Richard Jury series by Martha Grimes

Why I read it: I started reading Richard Jury in high school – my mom read the mass market paperback editions, and I would read them after she finished with them. I read them through high school (the first several), college (the next few) and law school (through maybe book 11 or so). There are 25 of them, reaching all the way into the end of the twenty-teens. I quit reading them at some unidentified time in the past, but have been picking them up and rereading over the past few years.

These books are, honestly, a little strange. Richard Jury is a recognizably normal Chief Inspector, but the side characters can be quirky to the point of bizarre. Melrose Plant, Earl of something or another and his not-even-remotely-likeable Aunt Agatha, Jury’s gorgeous neighbor, whose name I have forgotten but it might be Carolanne – it’s all very over the top. It’s sort of like Northern Exposure, but in book form, and in England. I am also fairly sure that Grimes (an American, but who writes books set in England) titled all of her mysteries after fictional pubs, and they have some of the greatest titles in the history of mystery fiction.

Pollard and Toye by Elizabeth LeMarchand

Why I read it: This is sort of a “village murder” series, also set in England. I obviously have a thing for mystery series set in England, and I’m not even a little bit guilty about this. The first of the Pollard & Toye murders was published in 1967, and there are 17 of them. The last, The Glade Manor Murder, was published in 1989. I’ve read more than half of these – the last one I read was (according to Goodreads) Unhappy Returns, and I finished it in March 2020.

I recall that one being a bit of a disappointment, which may explain why there has been a delay in continuing with the series. They are all available through the Kindle Unlimited Library, though, so I’m sure I will continue on at some point.

Johnny Under Ground by Patricia Moyes

Johnny Under Ground
 by Patricia Moyes
Rating: ★★★★
Series: Inspector Henry Tibbet #6
Publication Date: January 31, 1965
Genre: mystery
Pages: 253
Project: a century of women
Emmy Tibbett was uneasy about attending her twentieth Royal Air Force reunion. Emmy had been a native nineteen year-old auxiliary officer at Dymfield Air Base during the war when she had fallen in love with the handsome hero pilot Beau Guest. She had been devasted when he committed suicide by deliberately crashing his plane into the North Sea. At the reunion Emmy was shocked to discover she had been the very last to see Guest alive. Even more disturbing was her discovery that everyone connected with the fatal flight had something to hide.
Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett of Scotland Yard knew his wife had stumbled onto something sinister. But he couldn't keep her from investigating the past - not even when anonymous letters and a suspicious suicide made it clear someone meant to keep a nasty secret buried and wouldn't hesitate to kill.

My crazy pup chewed up my first paperback when I was at about 30%, so I had to get my hands on a new copy to finally find out whodunit.

I quite liked this entry in the series – much better than the prior book that I read, Falling Star. This one reaches back into Emmy Tibbitt’s past as a 19 year old member of the RAF auxiliary, long before she met and married Chief Inspector Henry Tibbets.

The book opens with a reunion of her old colleagues, in which she is convinced to participate in a book project where she and another of the old group are convinced to begin writing a book about Beau Geste, a famous pilot who is believed to have committed suicide by crashing into the sea in a bet with one of the other pilots. This stirs up some secrets that at least one of the old crowd would prefer to remain buried.

The mystery develops in two timelines, with flashbacks from Emmy. Emmy is one of my favorite series characters, so getting more of her backstory, as well as more interactions between her & Henry and her and all of those old colleagues was great. In addition, someone is trying to set Emmy up to take the fall, so Henry has to use his famous investigative skills to make sure they don’t succeed. The mystery itself was clever and the solution took me by surprise.

Triple Play: Vintage Mystery

Falling Star
by Patricia Moyes
Rating: ★★½
Series: Inspector Henry Tibbet #5
Publication Date: July 28, 1964
Genre: mystery
Pages: 255
ReRead?: No
Project: halloween bingo

Rich, aristocratic, and at the heart of swinging London, “Pudge” Coombe-Peters has everything except a decent nickname. And in fact, he has two special attributes: He owns the narration—the drawling, deliciously snobbish, all-but-impossibly irritating narration—of Falling Star, and he has a chum named Henry Tibbett, who comes in just awfully handy when people start dying on the set of the film that Pudge is producing.

Tibbett is especially welcome because, by the second death, it’s clear that we’re not dealing merely with murder but with Impossible Crime, the kind of fiendishly clever puzzle that is killingly hard to write and even more difficult to solve. The twisty plot and gorgeously retro setting on their own would make for a splendid read, but adding Pudge to the mix puts it over the top.

This is a series that I really like – so much that I am collecting them all in paperback. Unfortunately, though, this was quite a mediocre entry, in my opinion. There wasn’t nearly enough Henry Tibbets – he doesn’t show up until the 50% mark – and there was basically zero Emmy Tibbets, and she’s one of my favorite characters. The book specific characters were insufficient to carry it. The narrator was obnoxious. And, in addition, as I have discovered through reading this, as well as a couple of Ngaio Marsh mysteries (which were far superior to this one, but I digress), I just don’t really like “theater” settings for my golden/silver age mysteries. Meh.

Traitor's Purse
by Margery Allingham
Rating: ★★½
Series: Albert Campion #11
Publication Date: March 2, 1941
Genre: mystery: golden age (1920-1949)
Pages: 208
ReRead?: No
Project: halloween bingo

Celebrated amateur detective Albert Campion awakes in hospital accused of attacking a police officer and suffering from acute amnesia. All he can remember is that he was on a mission of vital importance to His Majesty’s government before his accident. On the run from the police and unable to recognise even his faithful servant or his beloved fiancee, Campion struggles desperately to put the pieces together while the very fate of England is at stake.

Oh, man, this book was such a bust for me because I unknowingly picked the “amnesia” book. I really dislike the amnesia trope under the best of circumstances. This was not the best of circumstances.

Rating/reviewing this book is a near impossible undertaking because I think that my decision to read it out of order and essentially in isolation was unwise. The only Campion mystery I have previously read is The Crime at Black Dudley, which barely includes him.

So, I went into this amnesia book in basically the same tabula rasa state as our sleuth, knowing none of the characters, knowing very little about Campion and, like Campion, I muddled around in confusion for some 200+ pages. I have no idea if this is a good book or not because I was so annoyed about my inability to understand what the hell was happening or who any of these people are. This was me:

So, this might be a great installment in the Campion canon (and, reading other reviews, I suspect that it is), but it not a great entry into the series. At all.

The Five Red Fingers
by Brian Flynn
Rating: ★★★½
Series: Anthony Bathurst #5
Publication Date: October 7, 1929
Genre: mystery
Pages: 210
Project: halloween bingo

“Hard luck to be murdered just after your horse has won the Derby! Don’t you think so, Doctor?”

Julius Maitland, the millionaire horse trainer is excited about his horse’s chance to win the Derby. His wife’s horse is also strongly fancied. In a neck and neck finish, Maitland’s horse takes the race, his wife’s in second.

In a national sensation, the winner is disqualified. A telephone call the day after the race summons the police to a house where Maitland’s murdered body is found – and he has been dead for at least two days. When Sir Austin Kemble, Commissioner of Police is asked to investigate, he immediately summons his friend Anthony Bathurst. But can Bathurst make sense of a case when the stakes are this high?

As you can see, my vintage mystery picks in September were not really successful. However, as part of my bingo game, I needed a book that related to sport or games, and this one was set in the world of horse racing, so it was just the ticket. I had already bought it along with a bunch of the Anthony Bathurst books earlier this year, so all the better.

I ended up really enjoying this DSP re-issue, which all takes place in the wild world of horse racing. There were definite shades of Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, with a very unlikeable murder victim, and a satisfyingly twisty mystery. The solution was a bit preposterous, but that’s not uncommon with these GAD mysteries when authors are trying mightily to keep things fresh in the face of hundreds of this same very popular style of mystery being published every month.

Horse racing can be murder, y’all.

Dead Men Don’t Ski by Patricia Moyes

Dead Men Don't Ski
 by Patricia Moyes
Rating: ★★★★
Series: Inspector Henry Tibbet #1
Publication Date: September 15, 1959
Genre: mystery
Pages: 288
Project: a century of women
“If you’re as hungry as I am for a really good whodunit, you will welcome the debut of Patricia Moyes,” wrote Anthony Boucher in The NewYork Times Book Review on the publication of this first Inspector Henry Tibbett mystery more than twenty years ago. The setting is the Italian Alps, where Henry Tibbett, on vacation from Scotland Yard, and his wife, Emmy, have settled in for some skiing. But their hopes for a holiday die when Henry uncovers an international smuggling ring involving some of the hotel guests. Then, a fellow guest who is alive when the ski lift leaves the top of the mountain is found dead when the lift touches bottom.
Henry Tibbett, Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard, has for years delighted those who love a classic British detective story. A modest, self-effacing man, Tibbett possesses an almost uncanny “nose” for crime, and those who know him well realize that his gentlemanly demeanor masks a shrewd mind and a fearless spirit. When he teams up with his wife, Emmy, a cheerful but formidable woman, there isn’t a criminal anywhere who can rest secure.

I’ve been intending to try out the Inspector Henry Tibbett series by Patricia Moyes for years. I picked up a different one – The Coconut Crime – at my local UBS and read it earlier this year and never posted about it over here. I enjoyed Henry and his delightful wife, Emmy, but wasn’t in love with the book’s tropical setting. I decided to order the first book in the series – this one – from Abe Books and give it a second try.

I have a much more significant affinity to mysteries set in cold, snowy climates, so this was a hit with me. I really enjoyed everything about it. We’re introduced to Henry & Emmy in England, as they are getting ready to leave for a skiing holiday in Santa Chiara, a small town in the Italian Alps, and Henry’s boss at Scotland Yard asks him to do a little bit of sleuthing around for an international smuggling ring. The side characters are likable and well-drawn, both the international jet setters who spend their days in Santa Chiara skiing and their nights drinking, and the staff of the hotel, all of whom are more than they appear at first glance.

Things really get going when a corpse shows up on the downward side of the chair lift that operates between the luxury hotel where Henry and Emmy are staying and the town of Santa Chiara. The victim has been shot, and no one is upset that he’s dead because he’s a drug-running, smuggling, abusive criminal. Henry duly sleuthes around, Emmy does what Emmy does best, which is pay attention and get people talking, and everyone works on their ski technique.

It seems like no one really writes mysteries like this anymore. It’s not a cozy, and lacks the sometimes overly twee elements that I don’t like in a typical coffee shop/bookstore/cat cozy. It’s not a police procedure or gritty modern drama. The puzzle is at the forefront, but, also character development and interactions are important. I really enjoy the classic mystery format and am always on the lookout for this type of series.