Back to reality

I’ve had chance to draw breath (and, because all good things come to an end, go back to work) after my summer holiday – a break all the more welcome as it gave me a chance to make at least a small impression on my massive to-be-read pile.

A couple of nights in Barcelona were followed by a seven-night cruise of the Mediterranean on a ship called the Norwegian Gem. The highlight in Barcelona was undoubtedly a trip to the marvellous Parc Guell, with its Gaudi sculptures, which reminded me that I’ve yet to write up the short story idea I had on my last visit in October, for a tale to be called ‘Gaudi Night’. But the sight of all the living statues on the Ramblas gave me another storyline…

Cruising has provided the backdrop for a number of mystery novels. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie must be the best-known, but others include Too Much of Water by the under-estimated Bruce Hamilton, and Obelists at Sea by that writer of extraordinary puzzles, C. Daly King. And listening to one of the shipboard pianists gave me yet another cruise mystery idea. The only question is when I’ll get round to writing up these stories…

This was my first cruise for nineteen years – since before children arrived on the scene, that is. Cruising has changed in the interim – the ships are much bigger, the facilities much better, the food even more plentiful and fattening than before. For lazy travellers like me, it’s the ideal way to sample fresh parts of the world. And among the sunny spots I visited were Valletta (the signboard in the picture was the closest I camee to spotting the fabulous Falcon), Naples, Pompeii, Livorno, Pisa and its leaning tower, Tarquinia and Cannes. The Bogartesque artwork, by the way, comes from Cannes – not far from where some of the scenes of To Catch a Thief (which I covered in this blog recently) were filmed by Hitchcock.

And one final thing. All authors like a morale boost now and then. And I got one when I found some of my books in the ship library, which was otherwise dominated by American bestsellers.

A Not So Perfect Crime

When visiting somewhere new, I always like to seize the chance, if possible, to read a book set there. So my trip to Barcelona offered the ideal opportunity to sample a debut novel by a Spanish academic, Teresa Solana, called A Not So Perfect Crime. It’s just published by Bitter Lemon, who have made available some quite splendid books not previously available in English translation.

The novel is told by Eduard, one of two twin brothers, who run a detective agency together. In fact, it’s more or less a phoney operation, since neither of them is much good as a detective, and they invent a secretary to impress clients, spraying perfume around in their little office before pretending the girl has gone off on an errand. The office even has false doors leading nowhere, to give a grand impression to visitors.

When a top Catalan politician asks them to investigate whether his gorgeous wife is having an affair with a painter for whom she has apparently modelled. The shameless Borja, much the more entrepreneurial of the twins, extracts large sums of money from the client for doing very little, but when the wife ends up dead, our heroes find they may have bitten off more than they can chew.

This is a funny and enjoyable novel, and I was amused by the coincidence that one scene of the book took place in a café where we’d had lunch twenty-four hours earlier. The twins are a memorable duo and there are some laugh-aloud scenes. The element of the book that satirises Catalan politics rather passed me by, but this didn’t spoil the fun. The zany plot is a mess – but, to some extent, that is the point: this is a sort of ‘anti-detective’ novel. If Solana brings the twins back, she will almost certainly have to treat the story-line more seriously, but I hope this doesn’t deter her from a follow-up. Such good characters deserve to live again.