tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291823984059320518.post2621046563120997907..comments2024-03-26T17:48:56.627+00:00Comments on 'Do You Write Under Your Own Name?': The Murder and Mr AkroydMartin Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16082485795280777670noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291823984059320518.post-19703721411696940462010-11-06T22:53:54.041+00:002010-11-06T22:53:54.041+00:00Quartpot, very interesting, thanks. I am a huge Be...Quartpot, very interesting, thanks. I am a huge Berkeley fan, though I agree Jumping Jenny isn't one of his best. Not a bad ending, though, as you say!Martin Edwardshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16082485795280777670noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291823984059320518.post-46567581578061280382010-11-04T01:01:33.726+00:002010-11-04T01:01:33.726+00:00Re gibbets in crime literature: I've come rath...Re gibbets in crime literature: I've come rather late to this topic, Martin, but as it ties in with your more recent posts on Anthony Berkeley and Andre Steeman, I thought I'd add my ha’p’orth anyway!<br />I've just finished reading Berkeley's Dead Mrs Stratton, originally published in 1933 as Jumping Jenny. It's set during and after a country house 'murder-and-victim' party, and opens with a striking first sentence: "From the triple gallows three figures swung lazily, two men and one woman." The gallows is, of course, one of the party decorations[!]. The figures are all life-size dummies - but as Berkeley intends, we rightly assume that will no longer be the case by the end of the party, and the gallows is indeed central to the whole story.<br />Unfortunately, after this brisk start, the first few chapters are quite hard going. We are introduced to about a dozen people and have to remember not only their names (several have surnames in common) and their relationships, but also the characters they have come as. Worth persevering, though, as it's a cleverly-constructed plot with a mystery that is only fully explained by the book's wonderfully throwaway last line. <br />Berkeley's gallows/gibbet isn't, of course, a guillotine, but I think the decapitating Halifax Gibbet may well be one of a kind: it has its own entry in the OED. <br />Incidentally, the French title of Maigret and the 100 Gibbets is, less dramatically, Le Pendu de Saint-Pholien. Simenon apparently based the story on the suicide of an early friend of his, who hanged himself from the knocker on the door of Saint-Pholien church in Liege. Clearly Simenon had "the splinter of ice in the heart" which Graham Greene said was essential to a writer!<br />Oh - and the Steeman connection is that he and Simenon were contemporaries and both born in Liege. Your and Xavier's praise for him have set me looking out for his work!QuartPotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291823984059320518.post-86692683693451320552010-10-11T01:58:59.138+01:002010-10-11T01:58:59.138+01:00Congratulations on the U.S. release. Interesting p...Congratulations on the U.S. release. Interesting post.<br /><br />Mason<br /><a href="http://www.masoncanyon.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Thoughts in Progress</a>Mason Canyonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10935307400882363560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291823984059320518.post-41839937115448057072010-10-10T20:37:45.121+01:002010-10-10T20:37:45.121+01:00Thanks, Margot.
Fiona, great work, why didn't ...Thanks, Margot.<br />Fiona, great work, why didn't I think of that?!Martin Edwardshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16082485795280777670noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291823984059320518.post-46138907777250836962010-10-10T19:48:53.982+01:002010-10-10T19:48:53.982+01:00I just Googled 'Crime novels about Gibbets'...I just Googled 'Crime novels about Gibbets' and found a reference to Simenon's 'Maigret and the Hundred Gibbets'. The mind boggles....I didn't pursue the topic.<br /><br />There were also references to the killing of the Unknown Sailor at Hindhead and the gibbet upon which his killers were hanged, but this is factual (and not far from where I live); Dickens mentioned it in Nicholas Nickleby.Fionahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15136142030481900981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7291823984059320518.post-19587279215554582892010-10-10T14:09:08.078+01:002010-10-10T14:09:08.078+01:00Martin - Very interesting stuff about the Akroyd L...Martin - Very interesting stuff about the Akroyd Library. Thanks for sharing it. I'm going to have to do some thinking about whether crime fiction features gibbets... ;-). And good news about your U.S. release, too.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com