Murder mysteries and binge-reading – enjoy episode 57!
In this episode, we compare an uncharacteristically modern novel – The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton, published in 2018 – with Agatha Christie’s classic Poirot novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. In the first half, we debate whether we binge-read authors or spread them out to save them.
Feel sorry for Rachel this week – she’s rather croaky with a cold, but she powers on admirably! I’ve edited out most of her coughing, poor thing, but apologies for any that have snuck in.
You can check out our Patreon account – where you can support the podcast at various different reward levels, including having a book sent each month. We also have our iTunes page, and you can read Rachel’s reviews of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
The books and authors we mention in this episode are:
Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar
Charlotte Bronte: A Life by Claire Harman
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Iris Murdoch
A.A. Milne
E.M. Delafield
Richmal Crompton
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Charles Dickens
P.G. Wodehouse
Jane Austen
Miss Read
Enid Blyton
Point Horror
The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks
Albert the Dragon by Rosemary Weir
Further Adventures of Albert the Dragon by Rosemary Weir
Barbara Pym
Dorothy Whipple
Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Bowen
Sanditon by Jane Austen
The Watsons by Jane Austen
Lady Susan by Jane Austen
Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
Beverley Nichols
Anne Tyler
Rose Macaulay
The Loved One by Edith Olivier
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie
Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
Cousin Rosamund by Rebecca West
When I was younger I confess that I used to want to devour everything by an author when I fell in love with them. However I tend not to nowadays- and I find it has a negative effect and *can* actually put me off an author. So definitely save – even Beverley!!
I do wish a little that I’d saved some AAM, but it was also fun to dive straight through everything…
Hmm, I would have had a hard time choosing between the first two. I think I tend towards save, unless (as I think Rachel said?) it’s a series and then I’ll happily read the lot. There are just so many books to read that it feels rather limiting to stick with just one author/genre. I have just finished several novels, so now I’m turning my attention to a biography of Abigail Adams and a middle grade novel next. I haven’t read either of the last two books, but I’ll look out for Evelyn Hardcastle when it’s published in the U.S.
I agree – the more you read, the more you know is out there to read, so it gets harder to stick with a single author.
Great question! I always struggle — I have a couple of Dorothy Whipples I still haven’t read because I know I’ll be sad when I’ve read all her books. Same with Barbara Pym, I still have one left. That’s one reason why I live Trollope so much, the dear man wrote us 47 novels! (though a few are not as good, I admit). I think I’ve binged on series when I had to find out what happened — I read three or four of the Outlander series pretty quickly last year.
One author I definitely binged was Agatha Christie, mostly during a period of unemployment years ago. It was a bad time. I’ve read nearly all her books except the Westmacott romances and some of the spy stories which I didn’t much care for. I’ve also read most of Dick Francis, though I could tell the quality really dropped off a lot. I think I’m less likely to binge on an author if they’re dead and I know there are a finite number of books to finish. There’s also the possibility that I just won’t like some as much and will be disappointed.
I remember the ending of Roger Ackroyd but it’s been so long since I’ve read it I think it would be more fun to see if I can pick out all the clues. I also want to read Evelyn Hardcastle but i can’t decide if I should order it right away or wait and put it on my birthday list!
Not only is it ok to binge Agatha, I think it’s more or less impossible NOT to!
I am a binge reader. Currently binge reading Beverley Nichols, who dabbled in many genres with much the same recycled material! I tried a Laski novel to break the run of similar works, and was so shocked by it that it had to rush off and buy some cosy detective fiction by Nichols to cheer me up. Now I am breaking up the Nichols-mania with Monica Dickens, whose work nicely dovetails in period and style.
I did have an enthusiastic run of Elizabeth Taylor novels starting with Mrs. Palfrey (which is the best I have read so far) and had to stop as I found them lacklustre one after the other. I think her understated style takes some mulling over, and perhaps interspersing them with other novels might give them more power. So I see the argument for both sides.
I have had too long a Nichols break now (it feels like it, even though it’s only a few months!) so should get back to him. And I can definitely see that Taylor would need to be paced out, otherwise she would rather blur into one novel – and her style is too subtle to be binged.
Have you read Man Overboard by Monica Dickens? There is a character in it who is a larger than life writer, with a Navy man as a companion, who lives in Hampstead but is restoring a mansion house in Surrey with a huge garden, etc, etc. The character just has to be based on Beverley Nichols. I felt it was a sign that there is no escaping him!
I am not a huge binge reader normally, although I do tend to binge fluffy mysteries now and then, but generally I also want to know that I have more to read of a much loved author’s work (Elizabeth’s Fair! I only have two left!!)
I really enjoyed Evelyn Hardcastle, I ordered it from Book Depository and they shipped it to me in the US. Ebook, as far as I can figure out, can’t be downloaded from amazon.co.uk when you are in the US. Or maybe that is Audiobooks. Or both. Very frustrating. I’ve given up trying.
I think I side with Rachel here and would choose Evelyn over Rodger, but partly because I find Poirot a little annoying after a while. If he would just stop with the little grey cells thing! I did think the plot twist in Rodger was wonderful. I also gasp when I realized who the killer was!
I think I remember that neither of you care for Lucy Worsley but I wondered if you had seen her series on murder mysteries?
I do prefer Poirot’s companions to Poirot, so was sad that they weren’t in this one.
And no, I didn’t know she’d done one! I do find Worsley hard to stomach on TV, but might have to make an exception for this.
I remember binge-reading the Barchester Chronicles with unabated enthusiasm. I tried binge-reading the Patrick Melrose novels recently. I read Never Mind, Bad News, and Some Hope, then bravely started Mother’s Milk but ran out of steam 30 pages in. I think that Patrick becoming a loving father bored me to tears :-D.
I started A Dance to the Music of Time last year, in small doses, otherwise I would choke on it. So, on the whole, no bingeing for me.
Get well, Rachel !
And the Barchester Chronicles will certainly take a while!
I had a very difficult time reading …Evelyn Hardcastle. (The half death, BTW, is because Evelyn doesn’t quite die in one section. Don’t you remember?) As much as I marveled at its time travelling construction, the body switching, and plot machinations (none of which I found confusing in the least) I nearly stopped reading it because the story and the worldview expressed in the action began to anger me. The story existed only for the violence and it all began to seem pointless which I think is the author’s worldview. I’m glad that Simon (one of the few reviewers who ever mentioned this) brought up the inherent sadism. It’s omnipresent and is part of the reason the book exists. I read lots of crime fiction and I understand the difference between brutal violence and sadism. I believe this book is amoral and deeply nihilistic. It’s a novel about punishment, violent death is inescapable we are told repeatedly, and heroism has no place in the world. No matter how hard he tries to prevent violence and save Evelyn someone always dies. And if that message isn’t hopeless enough for you the surviving characters become loathsomely craven in the final pages, bargaining and begging to spared in the most selfishly, cowardly ways. I thought it was going to turn out like David Cronenberg’s film Existenz and we would discover that it was all a role playing video game. However, the actual ending and it’s fantastical alternate world where punishment rules all nauseated me. I loathed the book from it’s midpoint to the final pages and I refused to review it on my blog.