The Mystery of the Creep-Show Crooks

Forty years ago, I read my first Three Investigators book. Now I have just finished reading my last one, The Mystery of the Creep-Show Crooks, by M. V. Carey. I'm glad that this particular story was last on my list rather than one of Ms. Carey's duds like Wandering Caveman. It's an interesting story. The boys find a bag on the beach containing make-up and a teddy bear made of real fur and set out to track down the owner. The girl turns out to be a runaway who came to Hollywood with dreams of being an actress. The boys track her down for her parents without much difficulty, but she doesn't want to go home. Then she disappears. Burglaries are taking place, even at the Jones house, where Aunt Mathilda is locked in a cupboard. A lot of detective work uncovers a money laundering scheme and the location of the kidnapped girl, with Worthington aiding a dramatic rescue. It was a good story with interesting crooks. However, unlike most of the investigators' past enemies, the crooks in this story are just stupid. They are very clumsy in their criminal activities and even store evidence against themselves in their car instead of getting rid of it. All in all, a good read and a fun way to end the series. As I've written before, The Three Investigators are very important to me. In childhood I read their books over and over. There were some disappointing stories along the way (Coughing Dragon, Nervous Lion, Phantom Lake) but there was never anything better in my reading experience than getting my hands on a well written story about Jupe, Pete and Bob. The anticipation of looking at the titles and having to wait for them to appear at Woolworth's or John Menzies. I still recall how it seemed to take forever for The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy and The Mystery of the Green Ghost to appear on the shelves, and how wonderful it was to read them when I got them at last. Now I've read all 43. Mission accomplished.

The Four Loves

"What were the women doing meanwhile? How should I know? I am a man and never spied on the mysteries of the Bona Dea." I first read this light-hearted quote from The Four Loves in Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Tolkien back in 1986. But in all these years, I had never come across a copy of this book by C. S. Lewis until April this year at Waterstone's bookshop in Ayr. Several Lewis books had been reissued in new paperback editions. I decided to buy two of them: The Four Loves and Surprised by Joy. I read the latter first. It was a bit heavy at times but on the whole I liked it. I began to read the former in May and had been reading it on and off until yesterday. After looking forward to it for years, I found it a bit disappointing. Too much rambling and padding to state the obvious in some cases; too didactic and dictatorial in others. Lewis talks a great deal about marriage. As in some of his other books, marriage is seen as an important institution that he compares with the relationship between Christ and the Church. And yet he later married Joy Davidman so that she could remain in England, telling a friend that "the marriage was a pure matter of friendship and expediency". Hardly a suitable role model for his readers. I find it hard to understand the purpose that this book serves, although I do understand the original intention behind it: to analyze how we relate to different people in different ways and put labels on these relationships. The premise is good and he tells us that with other people we have Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity. He talks of simple pleasures, such as seeing the word GENTLEMEN above a door when nature calls. But these amusing notes dwindle as the book progresses. There are some passages that make the reader pause for consideration. For instance, he warns against refusing to love in order to protect yourself: "There is no escape along the lines St. Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal" (Pg. 147). But for every such nugget, there is too much padding and imposition from the author. It may be that the book is a bit above my head and that I just find it hard to follow his arguments because I cannot match him in intellect. He seems to be treading too fine a line as he stumbles through the definitions he is trying to make and the labels he creates for them. The words "of course" are used a lot, as he lays down the law. I didn't enjoy this book as much as I expected I would. Maybe a collection of quotations from it would go down better. The next Lewis book on my list is Mere Christianity. Here's hoping...

The Mystery of the Trail of Terror

It was a cold, wet and miserable day yesterday and work was slow. In the late afternoon, I decided to start a new book, one of the two original Three Investigators books I had yet to read. The Mystery of the Trail of Terror is the thirty-ninth in the series and probably the shortest. Pete’s grandfather, Mr. Ben Peck, is an inventor, but he is also impetuous and quick to anger. He has a feud with his neighbour, a Mr. Ed Snabel. Mrs. Crenshaw “hires” the investigators to accompany (i.e., keep an eye on) her father on a cross-country trip by car to New York City, where he wants to find a backer for his latest invention. Mr. Peck is happy to have the boys go with him and they set off at a leisurely pace, making lots of stops along the way. However, to their surprise, they come across Snabel. Mr. Peck and the boys are convinced that he is out to steal the invention. But no matter what they do and how devious a route they take, Snabel always finds them. There is also a gang of bikers on the roads that wants to make trouble. The adventure rolls along, taking the party through clashes with the bikers, a dramatic fire at a hotel and an attempted kidnapping. There is also the impending danger of Snabel stealing the invention. Mr. Peck refuses to tell the boys what the invention is and does not seem particularly worried about it being stolen, which appears out of keeping with his character. Jupiter, in one of the rare pieces of actual investigating in the story, works out that Snabel is not interested in the invention and deduces that he is actually after Bob’s camera. Snabel had an identical camera and in a confusing scene, they ended up being switched. Snabel is a spy and when they finally reach a big city, Mr. Peck seeks out the FBI. The story proceeds to a fairly exciting climax, with rides on the New York subway and the capture of Snabel. When the boys meet Hector Sebastian at the end of the story, they reveal what Mr. Peck’s invention was and why he wasn’t worried about it being stolen: he had mailed it to his hotel before setting out!

This is quite a good story, but it hinges too much on coincidence. That Snabel and the tour party would turn up at the most unlikely spot together, Pismo Beach, is hard to accept. Snabel, who has to hand a roll of film to another spy, would be unlikely to travel such a far distance to deliver his package out in the open. That could have been better contrived. It takes Jupiter a long time to work out how Snabel manages to follow them, finally arriving at the conclusion that he was using a homing device. As the boys had used homing devices themselves on so many cases, it’s strange that he doesn’t hit on such an obvious solution long before. Jupiter certainly does not show much mental prowess in this story and Bob doesn’t do any research. The book is more of an adventure story than a detective novel. But the characterisation is good. The peppery Mr. Peck is a lot of fun and the crooks are passable. There are holes in the plot, it’s true, but on the whole it’s not a bad book. M. V. Carey had reached an all-time low with The Mystery of the Wandering Caveman in 1982. The following year she had redeemed herself with The Mystery of the Missing Mermaid. Trail of Terror was one of three books published in 1984, the others being The Mystery of the Two-Toed Pigeon by Marc Brandel, and The Mystery of the Smashing Glass by William Arden. Now I have only one 3I book to read, The Mystery of the Creep Show Crooks by M. V. Carey, published in 1985.

Lady Chatterley's Lover

It’s funny how you can wake up one morning not even aware of something and yet by the end of the day you are absorbed in it. On Monday morning, a Brazilian bank holiday, I logged on to Yahoo News and saw that the top search of the day was Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I think the BBC had made a new dramatization of it. It was then that I realized I had never read this book. I often quote Mark Twain, who once said that a classic is something everybody wants to have read but nobody wants to read. I tend to agree. People like to display their erudition by discussing Shakespeare or the Brontë sisters, but few people actually want to take the time required to read these hefty works. And yet, I had just finished reading Villlette which, although heavy going, was a very satisfying read. So I took the plunge and downloaded Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I read it in less than twenty-four hours. It is not a difficult book to read and the tale is quite simple. The story begins after the Great War. Sir Clifford Chatterley returns from France badly injured and paralyzed from the waist down. His wife, Connie, sticks by him, but ends up having affairs. She is particularly drawn to the estate’s gamekeeper, Mr Mellors. They handle the affair quite clumsily and Sir Clifford’s nurse discovers it in no time, but keeps quiet. Connie is pregnant and goes to Italy to pretend that the baby was conceived there. Clifford has said he doesn’t mind her providing an heir to the estate but he has no idea that his wife is involved with a gamekeeper. Sir Clifford is an elitist and snob and makes no effort to hide his disdain for the lower classes. Connie tires of all the rigmarole and confesses the affair. She had been worried about her good name, etc., but cannot bear to be married to Clifford anymore and throws caution to the wind. Mellors’s former wife turns up to make trouble, but after a lot of scandalous behaviour, she disappears. Mellors gets his divorce but Sir Clifford refuses to divorce his wife. The story ends on this note, but with Mellors assuring Connie that they will be together and that Sir Clifford will yield eventually.

The story is well written and interesting. It addresses social class and conflict and some passages are devoted to arguing about the idea of living an intellectual life. However, what made the book infamous was its sexual content. The book was published in 1928 and the controversy raged on for decades, culminating in an “obscenity” trial against Penguin Books in 1960. This trial pushed back the boundaries on what publishers could release in print. The Obscene Publications Act of 1959 stated that explicit content could be published if it were possible to prove that the work had literary merit. Many publishers around the world had only dared to issue heavily edited or abridged versions of the book. The trial was a huge victory for Penguin. The chief prosecutor made a terrible faux pas when he addressed the court saying that Lacy Chatterley was not a book that one would wish one’s “wife or servants to read”. This made him look very old-fashioned and behind the times. However, by today’s standards, the sexual content seems quite tame or even run-of-the-mill. Sir Clifford, commenting on the scandalous accusations made by Bertha Mellors against her husband, remarks that his gamekeeper liked to “use his wife in the Italian way”. Mellors tells Connie that she has “got the nicest arse of anybody… An’ ivery bit of it is woman, woman as sure as nuts. Tha’rt not one of the buttonarse lasses as should be lads… An if that shits an’ tha pisses, I’m glad. I don’t want a woman as couldna shit nor piss”. The C-word and the F-word are used, not liberally, but they are used. Mellors tells the impotent Sir Clifford: “Folks should do their own fuckin’, then they wouldn’t want to listen to a lot of clatfart about another man’s… It’s not for a man in the shape you’re in, Sir Clifford, to twit me for havin’ a cod atween my legs”. Shocking, especially for the time. However, the court ruled that this work had literary merit, so publication went ahead. I quite liked the story, although some of the characters are a bit stereotypical: the snooty Sir Clifford, Connie’s sceptical Scottish father who accepts Mellors after downing a few glasses of whisky with him, Connie’s disapproving sister Hilda and the prude working class people in the nearby town. But it is an entertaining story. However, it doesn’t really merit all the attention it has garnered in my opinion. It’s amazing what a bit of sex can do.

David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire. Despite not being from an academic family, he became a teacher and won a prize for a short story in the early 1900s. Ill health, which plagued him all his life, forced his to resign his teaching post in 1912. After the Great War, he and his wife travelled extensively. However, his health continued to deteriorate and he died in 1930, two years after the publication of Lady Chatterley, his last book. Besides Lady Chatterley, he is probably best remembered for his novel Sons and Lovers, published in 1913.

Allie Jamison Armada Books

Captain Armada

When I started reading, the most affordable books were Armada paperbacks. In 1977, they cost 35p, a far cry from the Collins hardbacks, which cost over three times as much. At the end of these books there was always this little ad, informing us that Captain Armada had a shipload of exciting books. In the 80s, Captain Armada changed to a superhero, similar to Captain America. I prefer the old one. Looking back at the prices, it was great if you came across an older copy that had been sitting on the shelf for a while because it might cost 5p less. That shilling made a big difference, as it meant a pocketful for sweets or a small bar of chocolate! 

Allie Jamison

Mary Virginia Carey wrote the first of her fifteen Three Investigators books, The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints, in 1971. She would continue with varying degrees of success until the last story, The Mystery of the Cranky Collector, in 1987, when the series was cancelled. She was identified only as M. V. Carey, to avoid discouraging the predominantly young male readers who wouldn’t want to read a book by a woman. Some of her stories (Wandering Caveman, Scar-Faced Beggar) were truly awful. Others were passable (Monster Mountain, Missing Mermaid). But there were a few gems. The Mystery of the Magic Circle is a point in question. But the best books she wrote for the series featured a strong female character called Allie Jamison. She was a bit of a spoilt rich kid who rode an Appaloosa and occasionally resided in Rocky Beach. She was hard-headed and gave Jupiter a run for his money when it came to investigating, although she relied much more on her instinct than on logic or deduction. Even so, she was usually right. Despite her cocky and conceited nature, the boys couldn’t help liking her; and neither could the readers. She was without doubt Mary Carey’s best contribution to the series and was featured in two stories: The Mystery of the Singing Serpent (1972) and The Mystery of Death Trap Mine (1976), numbers 17 and 24, respectively. As mentoned above, Ms. Carey's stories were not without their flaws. For example, she had a habit of using supernatural phenomena in her books and sometimes leaving the issue unresolved (the phantom priest in Invisible Dog and the monster in Monster Mountain). This was either meaningless or detrimental to the story. There is no supernatural phenomenon in the later story about Death Trap Mine and, fortunately, in Singing Serpent, she reverts to the use of Occam’s Razor and provides a logical and satisfactory explanation for the several mysterious events that take place in the story.

Singing Serpent was one of the first 3I books I read, maybe seventh or eighth. I was in the town with my mother and brother one Saturday afternoon in early 1977 and up near Buchanan Street Bus Station we came across a little shop called The Church of Scotland Book Shop. I saw a Three Investigators book in the window and dashed in. There were lots of the smaller Collins hardbacks, which I had never seen before. I think they cost a pound each or £1.25. That was quite a lot of money back then. I begged my mum for a book and she surprised me by agreeing to buy two! The other one was The Mystery of the Shrinking House. Once I got home, I plunged into Singing Serpent and absolutely loved it. I read it many times. Although it was a hardback book, there were no internal illustrations. It was only with the advent of the internet that I finally got to see the pictures used in the American edition.

Death Trap Mine was only published in the UK almost a year later. My friend Stephen, who also read T3I and The Hardy Boys, came to school one day bursting with the news that he had come across the newly released Number 25 in the series, The Mystery of the Dancing Devil. He told me the exciting news that, according to the list of titles in Dancing Devil, the 24th book was called The Mystery of Death Trap Mine. But it seemed that everyone in the city was after the single copy at our library, and neither of us could get our hands on it. I can remember waiting for months to borrow it. Every time I asked, it was out on loan or had been reserved. But then my luck changed. One Thursday night, I was browsing around the library on my own and suddenly, as if in a dream, there it was, lying on a reading table. On a chair beside the table bags and coats were piled, and a school notebook lay open on the table next to the book. I was perfectly aware that the little blonde girl that had wandered over to a nearby shelf of girls' books for a moment, leaving the treasure unguarded, had reserved it. It was too sore a trial. I considered myself a law-abiding citizen, but I had to have that book. I decided to take it and, if challenged, bluff my way out. I knew deep down that I was about to do something wrong. But I had only just turned eleven and pretended to myself that the book was there for the taking. I picked it up, walked over to the librarian’s desk and handed it to her. That was a long moment. I stood silently, nervously, waiting for her to say “Oh, sorry! I’m afraid you can’t take this.” But she didn’t. I could hear the girl, now back at the table, say “But, Da-ad…” The man just shook his head, his beard parted in a smile. But I pretended not to see him while that interminable moment stretched out. I must have looked as guilty as sin, but the librarian hardly glanced at me. Finally, I heard the little beep as my library ticket was scanned. Fate was on my side. The librarian stamped the book and handed it to me. I stashed it under my coat and fled! I was several hundred yards along the Alderman Road before I slowed down. On I went, turning left at Dyke Road, then down Brownside Drive and over the bridge to 10 Kelso Street. I was home. No sign of pursuit. The Mystery of Death Trap Mine was mine, all mine – for two weeks anyway. I got to school the next day and told Stephen I had got the elusive book. He pretended not to care, but I could tell he was jealous. After all, he was the one who had discovered that Number 22 was called Dead Man’s Riddle and that the scene depicted on the cover illustration of Invisible Dog didn’t actually occur in the story. Now it was my turn to gloat. But I promised I would lend the book to him. Then he looked happy.

It happens quite often in life that you can really look forward to something, build up your expectations, only to be let down. Sometimes, nothing can live up to the hype we create in our minds. I’m happy to say that this was not the case here. Death Trap Mine was everything I had hoped for and more. The return of Allie Jamison was totally unexpected and delightful. The book had everything that had often been lacking in the stories penned after the demise of Robert Arthur: a good, strong, memorable crook (three of them actually), a really exciting plot, wonderful secondary characters and a red herring. The boys and Allie visit her uncle’s Christmas tree ranch in New Mexico. A long dead mine is being worked again and mysterious characters are hanging around this usually peaceful place. It’s action all the way. A thief in the night, visits to ghost towns, explosions, helicopter rides… I read the story twice in a row. I pronounced it the best, the greatest book I had ever read. I would say it’s still my favourite 3I book. In a way, it is my Sehnsucht, my joy. By 1979, I had my own copy, a small Collins hardback. I used to write a grade on the first page of my books. This one was marked “100%”. I read it for the umpteenth time only a few months ago and it still stands up. A true favourite.

I wonder if that little girl at the library ever got to read the story. I hope she enjoyed it as much as I did. I still feel grateful to her father for not intervening. All he had to do was take a few steps across the room and remove the book from my grasp. He could have said "I'm sorry, son, that book was reserved for my daughter," or, even worse, "How dare you snatch a book from my little girl's table!" As he looked curiously at me, I sensed that he sympathised with me, perhaps remembering when he was a boy and how he had longed to read a particular book that was not easy to obtain. I'll never know. But it was nice of him to let me off the hook.

Runaway Alice (A Nickel for Alice)

When I finished Villette on Saturday, it was my intention to go straight to the book on Henry Kissinger’s years in the White House. But when I looked in my file of books to read, I noticed one that I downloaded along with Little House on the Prairie. It was called Runaway Alice (originally published in the early 1950s as A Nickel for Alice) by Frances Salomon Murphy. The picture on the front cover of a girl sitting looking miserable wasn’t exactly appealing, but I decided to give it a try. It’s a story about a 12-year-old orphan girl called Alice Wright and the difficulties she experiences in finding a foster home and, later, being adopted. Alice is first placed in the home of the Jordans, a well-to-do family with a daughter only two years her junior. Although the Jordans are nice, Alice doesn’t adapt, so she runs away. Miss Cannon, the social worker, is very patient with her and finds her another temporary home on a farm with the Potters. Mrs Potter would really prefer a boy, but agrees to take Alice until a permanent home can be found. Alice falls in love with the farm and makes friends in the surrounding area. Mr Potter also likes Alice, but Mrs. Potter is set on having a boy. The foster parents have three grown-up boys of their own who now live far away. Mother Potter grew up with a lot of brothers and only had sons, so she feels that she could never get used to a girl. Nevertheless, the couple end up becoming attached to Alice and she stays with them.

There is one scene early in the book that was particularly touching. When Alice, who has a reputation for being a runaway, hence the title, flees a foster home, she goes back to the first place she was sent to, the house of a Mrs Baker. This woman only took Alice in to make what money she could and made it clear that she never liked her very much. On Alice’s part, the feeling is mutual. But when asked why she continues to run back to the Baker family: “I don’t know,” Alice said helplessly. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

What I like about these Scholastic stories is reading about how fondly they are remembered sixty years on. So many people write that they read this story over and over again. It reminds me of the fond memories I have of my first books and how I could get lost in them. How it was good to get away from the mean side streets and immerse yourself in a faraway land where everything seemed to be so different and exciting.

There is not much information available on the author, Frances Salomon Murphy. She was an elementary school teacher and published two children’s books, both about orphans: A Nickel for Alice (1951) and A Ready-Made Family (1953). She also wrote a school textbook called History of Portland, Connecticut, which was published posthumously in 1969.

Angela Brazil

In January of 2012, one of the Facebook friends I’d made through reading Jane Shaw suggested reading a book by Angela Brazil. I felt a bit infra dig about it, I must admit. But I went to Project Gutenberg and read the first one I came across, A Patriotic Schoolgirl. It was written during the Great War and there was a lot of patriotism and an avalanche of anti-German sentiment. But at the same time it was a school story. I quite enjoyed it. A few weeks later, I read another one called A Fourth Form Friendship, published in 1911. It centred around a girl called Aldred who is prone to fibbing and overconfidence. I liked this story too. After that, I didn’t read an Angela Brazil book for three years. In January of this year, I read three of her books in a row: A Pair of Schoolgirls (1912), For the School Colours (1918), and A Fortunate Term (1921). The author was a very gifted writer and captures nature, climate, mood and character with great skill. Of these three books, A Fortunate Term was the best. It was also very popular when it was published, so much so that it led the author to break what might be called a golden rule for her. Angela Brazil, unlike most writers of school stories, never wrote a series of books. With the exception of A Fortunate Term, all of her works are stand-alone titles. However, Mavis and Merle Ramsay, the heroines, were so popular that readers wrote to her requesting a sequel. She complied, and in 1922 she published Monitress Merle. This was also an excellent book, every bit as good as the first.

The two books tell the story of Mavis and Merle, aged 15 and 14, respectively. Mavis is the quiet one and Merle is feisty, determined and dominant. The older girl is frequently in poor health and her condition is not aided by the climate in the northern industrial town of Whinburn. So, her mother decides that she will send her daughters down to Devonshire to live with their great-uncle and aunt, Dr. David and Nellie Tremayne. The story is set in the fictional villages of Durracombe and Chagmouth. Mrs. Ramsay impresses Mavis by promising her that flowers are still in bloom in December in the kinder southern climate. The Tremaynes live in Durracombe, but the doctor’s practice takes him to Chagmouth every Saturday, and the girls go with him in his car. Merle is very enthusiastic about learning to drive. However, as that is not yet possible, the girls have to be content with their new school, The Moorings, run by two elderly ladies.

Like most of Angela Brazil’s other books, the story is split between their time at school and their lives in the surrounding area. The girls come up against some unpleasant characters like Opal, the head girl at The Moorings who openly declares that she doesn’t like the idea of new girls bustling in from “big schools”. There is also the unpleasant nouveau riche Williams family who act as if they own the village of Chagmouth (although the girls form a sort of friendship in the end). However, there are pleasant characters like new friends Iva and Nesta. And there is an orphan called Bevis who has already left school. He is a hard-working young man who has been cast a bad lot in life, but remains optimistic. The story trundles along, with all sorts of adventures, but also some moving scenes, one in particular when a man dies, making a stunning revelation before he goes. Of course, things turn out well for Bevis in the end, Mavis’s health improves and the girls do well at school.

I waited seven months before I turned to Monitress Merle. This too was a wonderful story and we see the girls’ characters developing. At the end of the story, Bevis proposes to Mavis.

What I liked about Angela Brazil’s writing is her skill in describing scenes, especially nature and landscapes. She brings the world alive to her readers. On a less serious note, she was also famous for the unusual slang she put into the mouths of her characters. It was rumoured that Miss Brazil would sit near schoolgirls on buses and note down what they said. This is probably not true, seeing that very few, if any, of her phrases entered the vernacular. Some examples: 

Sophonisba!

Dona, you’re ostriching.

It’s a grizzly nuisance. Strafe it all!

Rouse up, you old bluebottle!

Miss Jones is a stunt, as jinky as you like

Oh, jubilate!

It’s a sneaking rag to prig their bikkies.

Scootons nous vite!

We’re having a top hole time.

What a blazing shame.

It’s a blossomy idea

More goose you!

Angela Brazil (1868-1947) wrote almost fifty books, most of them set in boarding schools. She was one of the first writers to write for the pleasure of her readers rather than to teach them a moral lesson. Her books were considered controversial in some quarters and were banned in some schools, although by today’s standards they are quite tame. The books were at their height of popularity in the 1920s, though they continued to sell quite well into the 1960s. Although most people pronounce her name like the country Brazil, the correct pronunciation of her name was actually ‘brazzle’.

Villette

Yesterday, I finished reading Charlotte Brontë's Villette. This morning, I woke up still quite moved by it. A brilliantly told tale. You only realize the genius of a writer after finishing a tale like this one. When you boil it down, the plot is about an impoverished former rich girl who, on a whim and almost penniless, ventures overseas in search of a new life. She becomes a teacher and later hooks up with former acquaintances. After a budding romance peters out, she finds herself attracted to a man that is not suited to her, but as there are no other prospects, she finds herself falling for him. Only a brilliant writer could take such a humdrum situation and give it the gravitas and pathos that turn it into a classic. Of course, there is much more to this book than just the story. Charlotte Brontë introduces many thought-provoking themes: the religious conflicts that blighted Europe for so many years, social class, unrequited love and shattered dreams. She asks questions of the world. Why do some people just breeze their way through life without a hitch while others are subjected to seemingly endless difficulties? Why do horrible people prosper? Lucy Snow, the heroine, tells the story in the first person with great skill. We follow her through more than a decade of her life as she analyzes the people who come and go. Lucy has been described to me as feisty, which she certainly is. However, what struck me most about her is that she is a realist. She accepts the world as it is, despite questioning it. She realizes that "bliss" is not her lot in life. She has an ability to accept that certain things are not for her and she can (literally) bury the past, as she does in one moving scene with a collection of letters. Storms are used throughout the story to signify a coming tragedy. But there is also some light comedy from the nosy Madame Beck and the giggly, whimsical Miss Ginevra Fanshawe. The two men that Lucy falls in love with, Graham Barrett and Professor Paul Emanuel, are very interesting and poles apart. Many people think Villette is better than Jane Eyre. It's not for me to judge that, but this book, almost 500 pages long, was well worth reading. 

Latest Purchase: The Price of Power

Over 700 pages long, this political tome is about Henry Kissinger and his influence on American foreign policy, especially during the Nixon administration. The book was published in 1983. The reporter who wrote it was there and saw it all with his own eyes. A historically important theme from a contemporary viewpoint. Should be interesting...

The House on the Cliff

When I started reading the Hardy Boys again, I was determined to get a hold of this book. The House on the Cliff is the second book in the series, but for some reason it was never published in the UK. I found out about the book in 1979 because a friend of mine had a copy of The Tower Treasure that I think his uncle had brought from the USA. Three things about that book struck me. First of all, in the UK, The Tower Treasure was Number 31 in the series, whereas it was actually the first one to be written. In Britain, The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior was the first title. Why? I have no idea. The second thing I noted was that my friend's book was Copyright 1959. The British editions all had much later copyright dates. I was even more surprised years later to discover that the books had actually first been written in 1927. The third thing I noticed was that the second title in the series was The House on the Cliff. I waited but, alas, no copy of this book ever materialized in the UK. So, in June of this year, I purchased the e-book and finally got to read it. It is not a remarkable story, but it is a good one and the first time the boys tangle with a "master" criminal. The only thing I would criticize about the book is that, like in The Tower Treasure, the criminal is nicknamed Red. The two crooks also have similar surnames: Jackley in the first story, and Snackley in the second.

The Firebird Rocket

In June, during my Hardy Boys nostalgia trip, I reread The Firebird Rocket. I got this book from John Menzies in 1979. It was written by Vincent Buranelli. In this story, Frank, Joe and Chet are on the trail of a missing scientist, and their search takes them to Australia. I think this was one of the best in the series. The plot is one of the few that I remembered clearly after such a long time.

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Lilian Turner

A few months ago I was introduced to Australian literature from the turn of the twentieth century. My friend Elizabeth suggested reading Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner (1872-1958). So, I dutifully headed to Project Gutenberg. But instead of this author, I found myself reading a book by her lesser known sister, Lilian Turner (1867-1956). I can’t remember why exactly. It was a Sunday morning and maybe I just didn’t feel like having to get to know seven characters in one go. The Lilian Turner book was called An Australian Lassie (1903). It was quite interesting to read about this new setting of Willoughby, just across the water from Sydney. The main character in the story is Elizabeth Bruce, twin sister of Cyril. Her mother was disowned by her father when she married a penniless author. Betty, as she’s called, longs for wealth and makes several attempts to get her brother adopted by her grandfather, Captain Carew, who lives just next door but never speaks to his daughter or any of his grandchildren, being a proud and stubborn old man. Instead, he has adopted the son of the man whom he intended his daughter to marry. John Brown arrives in the neighbourhood and makes life hell for the Bruce children, especially Cyril. However, he comes to have a reluctant admiration for the feisty Betty and a sort of friendship is struck up between them. They both dream of getting away and having an adventurous life. Although the girl and boy are only twelve and thirteen, respectively, they decide to sneak off to Sydney to make their fortunes. Betty earns a few shillings by singing in the streets. But eventually they are returned home by the police. Captain Carew, looking at his granddaughter, feels affection for her, but is too stubborn to admit it. The story ends happily enough, although the Bruce family do not find wealth. The moral of the story is that money does not ensure happiness. Betty’s parents, despite their poverty, are always happy together, while the rich Captain Carew is portrayed as a proud and bitter old man. I read this pleasant story in one day; my first taste of Australian literature. 

I discovered that there was a sequel called Betty the Scribe (1906). In this story, Betty is nineteen. She has just lost her mother and been encumbered with her numerous little siblings. Her big sister, Dot, is living the high life with a wealthy friend. Dot is the one on whom her parents built all their hopes, being educated privately and the only one of the family that enjoys any sort of luxury. Betty is an aspiring writer, having taken after her father. But she can’t find the time or the peace to write because of her many household duties. The first half of the book is one long tale of woe, filled with death and frustration. Cyril’s role in the plot is greatly reduced and the focus shifts to Dot. Little sister Nancy idealizes her and has a very strained relationship with Betty. Nancy writes to Dot, begging her to come home. Dot is all set for a trip to New Zealand, but struggles with the guilt of leaving all the donkey work to Betty. After her trip to New Zealand, she decides that her duty is at home. With Dot running the house, and with quite a knack for it, Betty is now free to pursue her writing career in the city. Her career meets with mixed success. John Brown returns from college and announces to Captain Carew that he cannot be his heir and that his wealth should go to the Bruce family. The old man offers Betty a chance to be his heiress, but she refuses. However, soon afterwards, he dies suddenly and leaves everything to her anyway. John Brown reappears and hints that he wants to marry Betty, but the book ends with Betty’s refusal, although the reader cannot be sure that she will not recant.

This second book was not as good as the first one. The younger siblings who crave Betty’s attention are cute but annoying, and there is too much misery in the early chapters for the book to be a comfortable read. At the end, things get better, with Betty selling her first book for fifty pounds. Here there is a stark contrast. Although so many things go wrong for Betty, her career as a writer is somewhat idealized, as if the author were thinking “I wish this had happened to me”. The idea that a nineteen-year-old girl could turn out a novel in practically no time and get it accepted by the first publisher she sends it to is a bit hard to swallow. She also gets a job at the first newspaper she applies to, although she gets fired for not doing a very good job. Again, the recurring theme of happiness with a simple life at home runs through the story, especially after Dot’s homecoming. At least the author allows the family to be happy about Betty’s inheritance, although we don’t actually see her with the money, as she has to wait until she is twenty-one to get it.

As far as I can tell, this was the last appearance of Betty Bruce in Lilian Turner’s writing. Her next two books, published in 1908 and 1909, respectively, were Paradise and the Perrys and The Perry Girls. I may return to Lilian Turner one day. But now I’ve moved on to a heavier tome: Villette by Charlotte Brontë.

Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed

This was one of the first books I read this year. Miles Russell makes a very convincing case for naming Charles Dawson as the perpetrator of the Piltdown Man hoax of 1912. It's an excellent book, although it tends to drag a little in the middle as he really piles on the evidence. But for anyone interested in hoaxes, it is highly recommended.

The Little House on the Prairie

Yesterday I finished reading The Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was only a few months ago that I found out that this is a true story and that Laura Ingalls was a real person. When I was a boy back in the mid-1970s, we used to watch the TV series on Sunday afternoons on STV after Cartoon Cavalcade. The story is actually the second in a series of books in which Laura Ingalls looks back at her childhood as she and her family move west. Although exact dates and ages are not mentioned in the books, websites on the Ingalls family state that this story is set in 1873-1874, when Laura was aged between five and seven. At the beginning of the story, her father decides to leave his kinfolk and venture from Pepin, Wisconsin to set up a farm 12 miles from the town of Independence, Kansas. The book is told from the little girl’s viewpoint, and does not offer much of an explanation for this apparently ludicrous upheaval. However, a little research showed that Mr. Ingalls was induced by the possibility of obtaining 160 acres of free land that was offered (through the Homestead Act of 1862) to anyone willing to settle the region. The problem is that the land in question is claimed by the Osage Indians.

It is a nice little story of a close family venturing into unknown territory in pursuit of the American dream. The children and Mrs. Ingalls are ruled by the kind but firm hand of Charles, or Pa as they call him. However, Mr. Ingalls takes some risks that can only be described as madness and the whole family nearly drowns before they reach the prairie land because of his rash decision to cross a creek in the wrong place. But they eventually reach their destination in one piece and Pa builds a house with nothing more than felled trees and a few borrowed nails. Adventures follow: trouble with the Indians, starting a farm, building a barn, trading in the nearby town, meeting the neighbours and fighting a prairie fire. There are also general descriptions of daily life and the surrounding lands. At the end of the story, the family are informed that troops have been sent to remove the settlers because the government have decided to side with the Indians. Mr. Ingalls reacts angrily and announces the family’s immediate departure. The end.

Some contemporary readers have been alarmed by the openly racist language used in the book. The normally wise, polite and docile Ma has harsh words for the Indians, and the sentence “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” occurs several times in the story. But as this is the way people spoke back in the day, I think it has to be kept in the text to preserve its authenticity. We only see the situation through the eyes of the Ingalls family and their neighbours. We don’t see the Indians in their camp. I’m sure there were Indians who said that the only good white man was a dead one. Another opinion that troubles modern readers is the argument, again forwarded by Mrs. Ingalls, that surely the land ought to belong to the people willing to farm it and that the Indians only roam around like wild animals. The Indians are also portrayed as thieves, entering the Ingalls home and stealing food and tobacco.

I enjoyed this story, and intend to read more of the books in the series. I wonder if the characters will turn out to be as they were portrayed in the television series. I noticed that in the last book, These Happy Golden Years, one of the chapters is called Nellie Olsen. I remember her as the blond, snobby nemesis of the Ingalls girls in the TV show. I wonder what she was like in real life.

While the Clock Ticked

The Flickering Torch Mystery

In June, I started rereading The Hardy Boys. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I read these books over and over. After thirty years, I felt a bit nostalgic for them and started buying them from Kobo and Amazon. I was surprised that some stories weren't what I had remembered. A number of the stories were revised and modernized in the late fifties and throughout the sixties. Others were totally rewritten, retaining only the title but with a new story. The Flickering Torch Mystery was one such book. The British Armada edition (above) that I had, for some reason, was the original story, although I bought it around 1979. When I bought the book from Kobo (below) I got the rewritten one, which wasn't all that good. I managed to find a copy of the Armada edition and read it as soon as I finished the rewritten version. Now, I am not being a Hardy Boys purist. A few days later, I read both versions of While the Clock Ticked and preferred the new one.

Latest Read: A Traveller in Time

A lot of negative things are said about online friendships. I often hear people showing disdain for Twitter and Facebook, claiming that they prefer “real people” rather than a never changing photograph that has to say everything in 140 characters. They laugh when they hear someone say that it’s time to “clear out their friends on Facebook”. I suppose there is some truth in this viewpoint. Every Facebook user has friends that they hardly know. I certainly do. A student who does one class adds me as a friend. Someone who agrees with something I wrote on Goodreads sends me a friend request. Yes, these are not friends in the traditional sense of the word or maybe not even friends at all. But that does not mean that everyone you meet online is just a face on the screen. To me, online friendships have been a lifeline. I love books, and down here in Brazil where hardly anyone speaks English and no one reads the kind of books that I do, the only way to talk about reading is online. For years, I had no one to talk to about the books I enjoy. I’ve worked at English schools, but the other teachers seldom read fiction in English, preferring to concentrate on books about ELT. So, when the internet came on the scene, I welcomed it gratefully. During the Lord of the Rings craze in 2001, I was online chatting every day. But it was only after I started the Jane Shaw blog that I started to meet people who enjoy a wider range of stories. There have been five people in particular: Pam from South Africa, Jan from Scotland, Ruth from Scotland, Pamela from the USA and Elizabeth from Australia. Recently, I’ve been having a nice correspondence with Elizabeth, who has a PhD in literature and has read tons of books. She recommended some of the best reads I’ve enjoyed this year, including An Australian Lassie by Lilian Turner and The Girl from the Big Horn Country by Mary Ellen Chase. Another book that she told me about was the one I finished reading yesterday, A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley, published in 1939. I’d never heard of this book, but I soon discovered that it has been enjoyed by generations of readers. It is classified as a young adult novel, although the level of vocabulary is quite advanced.

It is an interesting story about a girl called Penelope who believes that she lives in two time periods simultaneously. She was born in the late Victorian age, but finds herself being transported back to the time of Mary Queen of Scots in the 1580s and becoming embroiled in a plot to rescue the queen and smuggle her over to France. Of course, the outcome of this doomed plot is known from the start, so the focus of the story is on the characters. It is a very well written book and the author shows great skill when wielding her pen. It is interesting because when you finish reading it you are left wondering. Was she actually slipping through time or was she dreaming or imagining it all? In my opinion, it was either a vivid imagination or an illusion. But who knows? A very intense book. Not a page-turner, and few cliff-hangers. This is a book to savour and enjoy. I certainly did. An interesting comment that I read on Goodreads about this book was by a woman called Hannah. She said: "Absolutely enchanting YA novel. I only wish I had read it as a young girl so that I could have fond memories of it!"

Recent Read: The Girl from the Big Horn Country

This book by Mary Ellen Chase is the first of the two novels.Virginia is in love with her Wyoming home but will have to leave it to go to school in the East. It's a very well told story, originally published in 1916. It has many breathtaking descriptions of Wyoming and very interesting characters. It was recommended by my friend from Australia, Elizabeth Lindsay, who has recommended a lot of good books to me this year. The second book in the series is Virginia of Elk Creek Valley, published in 1917. It's definitely on my "to-read" list.  

Thorpe Green

I've never been one for poetry, but this one by Branwell Brontë is very nice. I think it's the simplicity of it that appeals to me. It reminds me of the sort of poem that would pop up in our readers at primary school and the teacher would either ignore them or go over them very briefly. I first came across Thorpe Green in 2001 and never forgot it. It was written by Branwell Brontë on 30th March, 1843. 

I sit, this evening, far away,
From all I used to know,
And nought reminds my soul to-day
Of happy long ago.

Unwelcome cares, unthought-of fears,
Around my room arise;
I seek for suns of former years
But clouds o'ercast my skies.

Yes-Memory, wherefore does thy voice
Bring old times back to view,
As thou wouldst bid me not rejoice
In thoughts and prospects new?

I'll thank thee, Memory, in the hour
When troubled thoughts are mine-
For thou, like suns in April's shower,
On shadowy scenes wilt shine.

I'll thank thee when approaching death
Would quench life's feeble ember,
For thou wouldst even renew my breath
With thy sweet word 'Remember'!

Reading in 2015

This year I made a resolution to read a wider range of authors rather than rereading my favourite books. The result so far is quite impressive. There are some rereads on the list like The Mystery of Death Trap Mine and Mansfield Park, and a couple of months ago I went on a nostalgia trip revisiting some Hardy Boys stories. But on the whole, I've been reading a much broader scope of books and articles. This is what I have read so far in 2015. Some of the books were quite disappointing, especially The Burden by Mary Westmacott (a.k.a. Agatha Christie). I also read three of Christie's Tommy and Tuppence books. The first one was really good, the second one was passable and the third one was dreadful. No surprise there as it was written towards the end of her life, around the same time that she wrote Passenger to Frankfurt, which was awful. However, there were also some excellent stories. Two books that I bought in Scotland deserve a special mention. The first was The Island of Lost Horses by Stacy Gregg and The Accidental Time Traveller by Janis MacKay. I read the latter on my way back to Brazil and absolutely loved it. I found out that there was a follow-up, The Reluctant Time Traveller, so I added that to my Kobo collection. At the beginning of the year, I became really interested once again in the Piltdown Man hoax. With e-books easily available, I added several to my collection, including the original Piltdown Forgery by Joseph Weiner and the later Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed by Miles Russell. Other books were found simply by browsing on Project Gutenberg. One was The Automobile Girls at Newport by Laura Dent Crane, published in 1910. This is a story about a group of girls who have the freedom to travel around on their own (accompanied by only one chaperone - pretty daring stuff!) because one of them has her own car, a pile of money and a free-thinking father. Anyway, here is a complete list of what I have read so far in 2015.

Missing One’s Coach (Anonymous)

Summa Theologica Part 1 (Saint Thomas Aquinas)
The Mystery of Wreckers Rock (William Arden)
The Mystery of the Smashing Glass (William Arden)
Azazel (Isaac Asimov)
The Alternate Asimovs (Isaac Asimov)
Lady Susan (Jane Austen)
Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)
The Piltdown Inquest (Charles Blinderman)
The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)
The Mystery of the Two Toed Pigeon (Marc Brandel)
A Fortunate Term (Angela Brazil)
Monitress Merle (Angela Brazil)
Loyal to the School (Angela Brazil)
For the School Colours (Angela Brazil)
Thorp Green (Branwell Brontë)
The Mystery of Death Trap Mine (M. V. Carey)
Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (Jimmy Carter)
The Girl from the Big Horn Country (Mary Ellen Chase)
The Secret Adversary (Agatha Christie)
N or M (Agatha Christie)
By the Pricking of my Thumbs (Agatha Christie)
The Automobile Girls at Newport (Laura Dent Crane)
The Visitor (Roald Dahl)
Parson’s Pleasure (Roald Dahl)
The Idea of Prehistory (Glyn Daniel)
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)
The Firebird Rocket (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Flickering Torch Mystery (Original) (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Flickering Torch Mystery (Rewritten Version) (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Firebird Rocket (Franklin W. Dixon)
The House on the Cliff (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Tower Treasure (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Secret Agent on Flight 101 (Franklin W. Dixon)
While the Clock Ticked (Franklin W. Dixon)
Man in the Empty Suit (Sean Ferrell)
The Governess (Sarah Fielding)
Jill’s Gymkhana (Ruby Ferguson)
Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties (Richard N. Goodwin)
The Island of Lost Horses (Stacy Gregg)
Timecast (James Hanback Jr.)
Wendy and Jinx and the Missing Scientist (Valerie Hastings)
The Whispering Statue (Carolyn Keene)
Alfred Hitchcock: Quotes and Facts (Blago Kirov)
The Planned Planting of Piltdown (Wilton Marion Krogman)
The Fib and Other Stories (George Layton)
Surprised by Joy (C. S. Lewis)
The Accidental Time Traveller (Janis MacKay)
The Reluctant Time Traveller (Janis MacKay)
Mission to Mars (Patrick Moore)
The Little Frenchman with his Water Lots (George Pope Morris)
Newton’s Gift (Paul Nahin)
Flowering Judas (Katherine Anne Porter)
The Grave (Katherine Anne Porter)
The Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed (Miles Russell)
Susan in Trouble (Jane Shaw)
The Wilsons Won’t Mind (Jane Shaw)
House of the Glimmering Light (Jane Shaw)
The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock (Donald Spoto)

The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (Guy Standing)
An Australian Lassie (Lilian Turner)
A Traveller in Time (Alison Uttley)
The Piltdown Forgery (Joseph Weiner)
The Burden (Mary Westmacott)
The Earliest Englishman (Sir Arthur Smith Woodward)
Ginnie Joins In (Catherine Woolley)
Ginnie and the New Girl (Catherine Woolley)