feather_ghyll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feather_ghyll) wrote2012-03-18 09:47 pm
feather_ghyll) wrote2012-03-18 09:47 pm
OVERVIEW: 1920s mystery and 1950s slice-of-life
Grey Mask: Patricia Wentworth, Coronet 1979
First published in 1929, this early Miss Silver mystery references Sherlock Holmes but reminded me of Tuppence and Tommy's adventures, as Miss Silver is brought in to deal with a criminal gang. There's no Scotland Yard, as the hero is determined to protect the heroine, but Miss Silver is up to the task. The characters are vibrant, although I did clock the villain early and there are too many coincidences - she needed to iron out the kinks in her plotting - but it was fun to read because it was a suspense novel rather than the more formulaic murders in later books.
Over the weekend, I also zipped through
The Larks of Jubilee Flat: Marjorie A. Sindall, Nelson 1956
The Larks are a family connected to the local hospital, St Anne's, by the mother, who works there as an orderly. The youngest daughter, fourteen year old Jilly, wants to become a nurse and would love to work at 'their' hospital, but she and her mother will have to convince Dad, who doesn't see why girls shouldn't leave school aged 16 and work before getting married, which the pretty eldest daughter, Pam, looks set to do, but that brings its own problem. The story is also about Valerie Gray, a novice nurse the family adopts and Pam's boyfriend Fruity (!) a barrowboy who used to run around with a dodgy gang. There's a bit of gawping at everyone's naivete to be done - and, of course, at the smoking on the hospital wards.
First published in 1929, this early Miss Silver mystery references Sherlock Holmes but reminded me of Tuppence and Tommy's adventures, as Miss Silver is brought in to deal with a criminal gang. There's no Scotland Yard, as the hero is determined to protect the heroine, but Miss Silver is up to the task. The characters are vibrant, although I did clock the villain early and there are too many coincidences - she needed to iron out the kinks in her plotting - but it was fun to read because it was a suspense novel rather than the more formulaic murders in later books.
Over the weekend, I also zipped through
The Larks of Jubilee Flat: Marjorie A. Sindall, Nelson 1956
The Larks are a family connected to the local hospital, St Anne's, by the mother, who works there as an orderly. The youngest daughter, fourteen year old Jilly, wants to become a nurse and would love to work at 'their' hospital, but she and her mother will have to convince Dad, who doesn't see why girls shouldn't leave school aged 16 and work before getting married, which the pretty eldest daughter, Pam, looks set to do, but that brings its own problem. The story is also about Valerie Gray, a novice nurse the family adopts and Pam's boyfriend Fruity (!) a barrowboy who used to run around with a dodgy gang. There's a bit of gawping at everyone's naivete to be done - and, of course, at the smoking on the hospital wards.