Vintage Books

I suppose finding some sort of "pattern" in what you're reading, when you read a lot of books, is inevitable, but it always intrigues when I find that sort of co-incidence showing up.  At the moment it's well-written unsympathetic, often off-putting characterisations.  THE PRECIPICE has more than one of those in spades.  

Thea Farmer's voice is very realistic, the retired school principal, reclusive, difficult, with a small circle of carefully chosen people she interacts with; her only soft edges come from her relationship with her beloved, and rapidly aging, dog.  Resentful and hostile, she's prickly, acerbic, standoffish and seemingly unable to find anyway to reconcile herself to the loss of her dream home and the invasion of her privacy that this new couple, and the child with them, inflict on her controlled and private world.

This is most definitely not a book for readers who like events declared right up front, and investigations and resolutions with everything neat, tidy and answered at the end.  It's not even a book that declares a "crime" or a problem blatantly, although I suppose it might be possible to take an educated guess at where we could be heading, if you have the time, or the inclination to want to try to double guess the author.  But it's really not that sort of a book.  THE PRECIPICE is very much a psychological thriller, moving seamlessly from the resentful mutterings of a grumpy old woman, through the development of a cessation of hostilities rather than friendship with the young girl, to a minefield of responsibility and dilemma.  There's the odd stutter and stumble along the way - they could be plot vagaries, they could equally be the vagaries of a tricky narrator.  

The book is undoubtedly one of those slow burn, sleeper type thrillers.  The plot's very slow to reveal, which makes the reader really have to concentrate on Thea's life - her main obsessions as well.  She's definitely terse, she's judgemental and more than a bit snobby at points, all of which seem perfectly in character, it's probably a tendency towards whinging that really stood out as a character flaw - somehow that just didn't fit with the rest of the woman's persona.  Having said that, there was something "not quite right" about the new neighbours as well... overly "nice", too contrasted to Thea to be true.  

So far, it sounds like there's not a lot going for THE PRECIPICE, and I can't begin to tell you how surprised I was to find that it had gone from a book to be slogged through, to something unable to be put down.  But it did, and that was quite a while before the "point" of the drama was clearly revealed, before the crime was declared, and some reason for everyone being assembled on the pages was constructed.  Where that happened, when the why or the what or the how became less important and the doing, the build up, the slow reveal really started to work, is still a bit of a mystery to this reader.  But work it did.

Being more than a little bit fond of the Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg series I was very annoyed with myself when I got a bit behind with the releases and had to make an effort to catch up.  Poor me.  So tragic.  Having to spend some time with one of my favourite, eccentric detectives and the rest of his team of mildly odd compatriots.

THIS NIGHT'S FOUL WORK sees Adamsberg team pretty well settled, so the introduction of any new lieutenant could be complicated.  Louis Veyrenc is even more disruptive, with his tendency to speak in verse (twelve-syllable alexandrines to be accurate), to say nothing of his oddly striped hair and his deeply held, childhood grudge against Adamsberg.  Which grudge Adamsberg is pretty well oblivious to until slapped over the head with the evidence.  He's somewhat preoccupied by the return into his life of old nemesis Ariane Legarde, pathologist, and Adamsberg enemy since he questioned her conclusions in a case twenty-three years earlier.  But there are crimes at the centre of this book and typically baffling at that.  You can only guess at what the connection could be between the ritual killing of stags in the hills of Normandy, two local "lads" found murdered after raiding the graves of recently deceased spinsters, and the escape from prison of a seventy-five-year old multiple killer nurse that Adamsberg has dealt with before.

Needless to say THIS NIGHT'S FOUL WORK has a wonderful feeling of the Gothic about it.  Odd glimpses of shadowy figures creeping around graveyards; curses past and present; places with strange histories; things going bump in the night in Adamsberg's new house; childhood grudges; deeply held beliefs; long enmities and friction.  Lots and lots of friction.  All of action swirls around Adamsberg as he sort of floats through life.  He's more a cerebral than rush around detective, prone to leaps of faith and acute observations - his odd behaviour is no longer regarded as anything out of the ordinary by a team which kind of specialises in odd behaviour.  But this team is also capable of immense kindness, understanding and support for each other - they are the perfect group to spend time with if you like things just that little bit batty.

If you're not aware of this series - Fred Vargas is the pen name of Frédérique Audouin-Rouzeau, French medievalist and archaeologist. Vargas, as of THIS NIGHT'S FOUL WORK a twice winner of the Duncan Lawrie International Dagger award, is translated by Siân Reynolds who does a sterling job at translating the language but keeping the overall feel and quirkiness of the books.

Just a quick word of warning - I rather like a series where it doesn't matter if you get them all out of order.  In the main I've read the Adamsberg books all over the place but in this case, with the next book AN UNCERTAIN PLACE out already, you'd really be best to read THIS NIGHT'S FOUL WORK first.  Without this, earlier, book I suspect a reader could get bamboozled otherwise as there's a lot of setup for AN UNCERTAIN PLACE in THIS NIGHT'S FOUL WORK.

Needless to say I just love these books.  But really - don't read them if you're looking for precise behaviour, keen logic, rules and regulations being followed, and no idiosyncrasies.  Do read them if you're looking for humour, darkness, quirky, a hugely entertaining police procedurals... well police scenarios.  Let's go with that...

Originally published in the 1940's the Gervase Fen mysteries are one of those rights of passage for crime lovers.  Or at least they were in my house as I was growing up.  Vintage Books have done us all an enormous favour in turning their attention back to some of the classic books - and this set from Edmund Crispin is a real job to behold.  Now I have read a lot of these books before, but the chance to reread them, without having to rely on falling on fragile old copies in second-hand bookshops is a joy.

And these are still very good crime stories.  Slightly eccentric in that vaguely bats sort of what-ho English style, they are built around a good solid foundation of a problem and a solution, no matter how odd the methodology might seem these days.

They are ultimately extremely enjoyable books - and Gervase Fen is a wonderfully eccentric, but extremely alert British investigating sort of chap - and I cannot recommend them highly enough - either as a reread or as a new experience if you're new to these classic English crime books.