After my week and a bit immersed in Paul Auster, time to get back to normal, with a pair of reviews for you .<\/p>\n
The Killings at Kingfisher Hill by Sophie Hannah<\/h2>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/annabookbel.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Hannah-Kingfisher.jpg?resize=263%2C400&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nThis was our book group choice for Jan into Feb which we discussed last week. We were up to \u2018K\u2019 in our \u2018flora and fauna\u2019 choices.<\/p>\n
Sophie Hannah, whose \u2018Spilling\u2019 sequence of crime novels I\u2019ve enjoyed very much, (my review of the 6th one here<\/a>) has, since 2014 been the official continuing author for the Agatha Christie estate on a series of novels featuring Hercule Poirot. The Killings at Kingfisher Hill<\/em> is the 4th published in 2020, but they\u2019re all standalone mysteries. <\/p>\nIt\u2019s Feb 1931. Inspector Edward Catchpool is the narrator of the novel, and at the beginning, he and Poirot, are waiting at Victoria for the motor-coach that will take them and 29 others to the exclusive Kingfisher Hill estate in leafy Surrey. Poirot explains to Catchpool that they have been summoned by Richard Devonport to look into the recent death of his brother Frank at the family mansion on the estate, but that Richard\u2019s father mustn\u2019t know that, they will play the role of devotees of the new board game developed by Devonport pere and his business partner, \u2018Peepers\u2019. It is hope that it\u2019ll rival \u2018The Landlord Game\u2019 \u2013 the original title of Monopoly.<\/p>\n
The journey is rather eventful. Poirot has to swap seats with a young lady who becomes distressed, and ends up sitting next to a wickedly acerbic woman who claims to be a murderer. She is later identified as Daisy, Richard and the late Frank\u2019s sister. Did she kill Frank? Now Frank is the black sheep of the family for convoluted reasons I won\u2019t go into, and his visit home was to have been a reconciliation with his parents. However, he brought a guest with him \u2013 the person they currently have banged up for the murder! For Frank fell foul of Sidney and Jessica Devonport\u2019s\u2026<\/p>\n
\n\u2026strict Devonport policy: no guests or callers, ever, unless they have been invited or approved by Sidney himself.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nHelen Acton, Frank\u2019s fiancee, who dearly loved him, is set to hang in a couple of week\u2019s time, hence Richard contacting Poirot. There will be another murder before long, and Poirot and Catchpool will be thrown out by Sidney when their real purpose is revealed, Sidney calling Catchpool Poirot\u2019s \u2018epicene lickspittle\u2019! That turn of phrase was the only thing I loved about this book. The rest was OK, eminently readable, but oh so convoluted. And the characters are all ghastly. Catchpool isn\u2019t a patch on Hastings, Christie\u2019s Poirot sidekick and Poirot himself was even more pompous than usual. The rest of our book group felt the same way, agreeing that Christie is an impossible act to follow, let alone imitate (in the best sense of the word), maybe emulate would be better. Several of us would recommend her darker and contemporary \u2018Spilling\u2019 series though.<\/p>\n
Source: Own copy. <\/strong> HarperCollins paperback 2021, 352 pages. BUY at Blackwell\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> via my affiliate link (free UK P&P)<\/p>\nThe Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe<\/h2>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/annabookbel.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Coe-Proof-Innocence.jpg?resize=260%2C400&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nAs a huge fan of Coe\u2019s, I was meant to review this for Shiny New Books, but when it came to it, I found myself strangely devoid of much to say about it, apart from how much I enjoyed it, and how much I laughed when I got the title (I won\u2019t explain, it\u2019d spoil the fun). It\u2019s a typical Coe novel in many respects, a biting satire couched in cosy prose that gently percolates as you read it and gets you later as you ponder the state of the nation portrayed within its pages. But Coe has also had some fun with this one, by experimenting with genre, and things are thus a little different.<\/p>\n
In a prologue to the prologue \u2013 a prelogue? \u2013 we meet a lady detective on her way by train to the Cotswolds, who is finding it impossible to think due to the announcements about suspicious things on the train with the catchphrase \u2018See it. Say it. Sorted.\u2019 This will become a kind of mantra through the book.<\/p>\n
Onto the prologue itself and we meet Phyl, who has had a run-in with a bloke about the lift buttons in Heathrow\u2019s Terminal 5 where she works. Home, her mother tells her they\u2019ll have house-guests, old family friend Christopher Swann and his adopted daughter Rashida. Phyl is slightly put out, but she instantly bonds with Rashida when the latter tells about her lifts experience at Heathrow. Phyll doesn\u2019t intend to be working in a sushi bar for long, she wants to be an author but can\u2019t decide which genre to sit her novel-to-be in. She has a shortlist of three:<\/p>\n
\n- Cosy Crime<\/li>\n
- Dark Academia<\/li>\n
- Autofiction<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
These three genres will become the style for the main three parts of the novel to follow. <\/p>\n
Part 1: \u2018See it\u2019 \u2013 Set during the few days that Liz Truss is PM and the Queue to see the Queen lying in state in London, sees a cosy crime being committed in the Cotswolds when Christopher Swann, a left-winger and government critic and blogger, attend a right-wing conference at a country house, ending up murdered. There is a funny scene earlier in the night of the murder where Christopher is talking to a sloshed professor who was meant to be giving the conference\u2019s keynote speech\u2026<\/p>\n
\nRichard complained to him about the difficulties of being a conservative thinker in the current academic climate. \u2018Scruton got it tight, you know,\u2019 he slurred. \u2018Slodger Cruton. I mean, Roger Scruton. He said that conservative academics . . . we were like homosexuals in Proust. We don\u2019t dare to annouce ourselves, so we have to recognise each other by certain signs. Secret signs. Have you read him, by any chance? Not Proust. Scrodger Luton, I mean Lodger Scrotom. Brilliant man, Absolutely brilliant. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nPart 2: \u2018Say it\u2019 \u2013 takes the form of a Dark Academia story, set initially during the Cambridge days of Peter Cockerill, an author, who was the subject of a keynote speech at the conference in part 1.<\/p>\n
Part 3: \u2018Sorted\u2019 \u2013 Rashida and Phyl take over the novel to tell the story of how they, alongside Inspector DI Prudence Freeborne, investigate the murder of Christopher and search for a missing book which pull all the pieces together in the Epilogue.<\/p>\n
You can tell that Coe was having great fun trying out these forms \u2013 and he does it really well, while continuing to skewer those he is ideologically opposed to (like Scruton!). DI Freeborne is a splendid creation in particular, a bon viveur and detective very much in the mould of Poirot, but in the body of a younger Miss Marple, (I imagined Olivia Colman playing the part!). <\/p>\n
While not my favourite of Coe\u2019s books (one day I\u2019ll rank them perhaps), I very much enjoyed his excursion into genre writing. It\u2019ll be interesting to see what he does next, for whatever it is, I\u2019ll be reading it. <\/p>\n
Source: Review copy \u2013 thank you!<\/strong> Penguin Viking hardback, 2024, BUY at Blackwell\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> via my affiliate link (free UK P&P)<\/p>\n\nLike this:<\/h3>\n
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nThis was our book group choice for Jan into Feb which we discussed last week. We were up to \u2018K\u2019 in our \u2018flora and fauna\u2019 choices.<\/p>\n
Sophie Hannah, whose \u2018Spilling\u2019 sequence of crime novels I\u2019ve enjoyed very much, (my review of the 6th one here<\/a>) has, since 2014 been the official continuing author for the Agatha Christie estate on a series of novels featuring Hercule Poirot. The Killings at Kingfisher Hill<\/em> is the 4th published in 2020, but they\u2019re all standalone mysteries. <\/p>\n It\u2019s Feb 1931. Inspector Edward Catchpool is the narrator of the novel, and at the beginning, he and Poirot, are waiting at Victoria for the motor-coach that will take them and 29 others to the exclusive Kingfisher Hill estate in leafy Surrey. Poirot explains to Catchpool that they have been summoned by Richard Devonport to look into the recent death of his brother Frank at the family mansion on the estate, but that Richard\u2019s father mustn\u2019t know that, they will play the role of devotees of the new board game developed by Devonport pere and his business partner, \u2018Peepers\u2019. It is hope that it\u2019ll rival \u2018The Landlord Game\u2019 \u2013 the original title of Monopoly.<\/p>\n The journey is rather eventful. Poirot has to swap seats with a young lady who becomes distressed, and ends up sitting next to a wickedly acerbic woman who claims to be a murderer. She is later identified as Daisy, Richard and the late Frank\u2019s sister. Did she kill Frank? Now Frank is the black sheep of the family for convoluted reasons I won\u2019t go into, and his visit home was to have been a reconciliation with his parents. However, he brought a guest with him \u2013 the person they currently have banged up for the murder! For Frank fell foul of Sidney and Jessica Devonport\u2019s\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026strict Devonport policy: no guests or callers, ever, unless they have been invited or approved by Sidney himself.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Helen Acton, Frank\u2019s fiancee, who dearly loved him, is set to hang in a couple of week\u2019s time, hence Richard contacting Poirot. There will be another murder before long, and Poirot and Catchpool will be thrown out by Sidney when their real purpose is revealed, Sidney calling Catchpool Poirot\u2019s \u2018epicene lickspittle\u2019! That turn of phrase was the only thing I loved about this book. The rest was OK, eminently readable, but oh so convoluted. And the characters are all ghastly. Catchpool isn\u2019t a patch on Hastings, Christie\u2019s Poirot sidekick and Poirot himself was even more pompous than usual. The rest of our book group felt the same way, agreeing that Christie is an impossible act to follow, let alone imitate (in the best sense of the word), maybe emulate would be better. Several of us would recommend her darker and contemporary \u2018Spilling\u2019 series though.<\/p>\n Source: Own copy. <\/strong> HarperCollins paperback 2021, 352 pages. BUY at Blackwell\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> via my affiliate link (free UK P&P)<\/p>\n As a huge fan of Coe\u2019s, I was meant to review this for Shiny New Books, but when it came to it, I found myself strangely devoid of much to say about it, apart from how much I enjoyed it, and how much I laughed when I got the title (I won\u2019t explain, it\u2019d spoil the fun). It\u2019s a typical Coe novel in many respects, a biting satire couched in cosy prose that gently percolates as you read it and gets you later as you ponder the state of the nation portrayed within its pages. But Coe has also had some fun with this one, by experimenting with genre, and things are thus a little different.<\/p>\n In a prologue to the prologue \u2013 a prelogue? \u2013 we meet a lady detective on her way by train to the Cotswolds, who is finding it impossible to think due to the announcements about suspicious things on the train with the catchphrase \u2018See it. Say it. Sorted.\u2019 This will become a kind of mantra through the book.<\/p>\n Onto the prologue itself and we meet Phyl, who has had a run-in with a bloke about the lift buttons in Heathrow\u2019s Terminal 5 where she works. Home, her mother tells her they\u2019ll have house-guests, old family friend Christopher Swann and his adopted daughter Rashida. Phyl is slightly put out, but she instantly bonds with Rashida when the latter tells about her lifts experience at Heathrow. Phyll doesn\u2019t intend to be working in a sushi bar for long, she wants to be an author but can\u2019t decide which genre to sit her novel-to-be in. She has a shortlist of three:<\/p>\n These three genres will become the style for the main three parts of the novel to follow. <\/p>\n Part 1: \u2018See it\u2019 \u2013 Set during the few days that Liz Truss is PM and the Queue to see the Queen lying in state in London, sees a cosy crime being committed in the Cotswolds when Christopher Swann, a left-winger and government critic and blogger, attend a right-wing conference at a country house, ending up murdered. There is a funny scene earlier in the night of the murder where Christopher is talking to a sloshed professor who was meant to be giving the conference\u2019s keynote speech\u2026<\/p>\n Richard complained to him about the difficulties of being a conservative thinker in the current academic climate. \u2018Scruton got it tight, you know,\u2019 he slurred. \u2018Slodger Cruton. I mean, Roger Scruton. He said that conservative academics . . . we were like homosexuals in Proust. We don\u2019t dare to annouce ourselves, so we have to recognise each other by certain signs. Secret signs. Have you read him, by any chance? Not Proust. Scrodger Luton, I mean Lodger Scrotom. Brilliant man, Absolutely brilliant. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Part 2: \u2018Say it\u2019 \u2013 takes the form of a Dark Academia story, set initially during the Cambridge days of Peter Cockerill, an author, who was the subject of a keynote speech at the conference in part 1.<\/p>\n Part 3: \u2018Sorted\u2019 \u2013 Rashida and Phyl take over the novel to tell the story of how they, alongside Inspector DI Prudence Freeborne, investigate the murder of Christopher and search for a missing book which pull all the pieces together in the Epilogue.<\/p>\n You can tell that Coe was having great fun trying out these forms \u2013 and he does it really well, while continuing to skewer those he is ideologically opposed to (like Scruton!). DI Freeborne is a splendid creation in particular, a bon viveur and detective very much in the mould of Poirot, but in the body of a younger Miss Marple, (I imagined Olivia Colman playing the part!). <\/p>\n While not my favourite of Coe\u2019s books (one day I\u2019ll rank them perhaps), I very much enjoyed his excursion into genre writing. It\u2019ll be interesting to see what he does next, for whatever it is, I\u2019ll be reading it. <\/p>\n Source: Review copy \u2013 thank you!<\/strong> Penguin Viking hardback, 2024, BUY at Blackwell\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> via my affiliate link (free UK P&P)<\/p>\n\n
The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe<\/h2>\n
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Like this:<\/h3>\n