5th January 99:

Finished Wilkie Collin's The Woman In White. Brilliant! It's been called English literature's greatest mystery novel by TS Eliot, and that's not far off the mark

 

10th January 99:

Read the Raymond Chandler fiction "Lady in the Lake." I loved Bogey's Marlowe (the sardonic detective) movies so I enjoyed this. Perhaps it was a bit too predictable but then again this was the man that helped define a genre. It reads like a film, it's not hard to see why they made such good ones, not only in its ease of reading but also in its duration. I did not feel like I had read a book but had read a watched a one and a half hour movie. Perhaps this is because I had just come from reading the incredibly long and dense Woman in White, in any case it was a little less than satisfying.

 

14th January 99

Took some time out today to read Chandler's "Pearls are a Nuisance" a small novella, really very good. As it looked smaller than it was, the length was satisfying. The detective is a lush toff who has been asked my his fiance to find her employer's strand of pearls. The tone is completely different from the last novel read - good to see he has variety!

 

15th January 99

Bored, nothing to read. I tried to read Amanda Cross's The Theban Mysteries. Didn't read want another detective novel so I stopped after the first two pages. Couldn't find anything I was in the mood to read, may start on historical romances.

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