Let's All Introduce Ourselves!
Oct. 31st, 2017 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_b posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
mystery_mansionWelcome! We've got more than a few members in this community now, so should we have an introduction post? Whether we should or not, we've got one now.
You can introduce yourself in any way you like, but if you're like me and prefer to answer community-related questions in a series, here's a series of questions for you:
1. What's the first mystery or other crime fiction you enjoyed?
2. What's the last thing you read/watched?
3. What are you looking forward to right now?
Feel free to ignore these questions and replace them with anything else you want to talk about! It's your introduction!
You can introduce yourself in any way you like, but if you're like me and prefer to answer community-related questions in a series, here's a series of questions for you:
1. What's the first mystery or other crime fiction you enjoyed?
2. What's the last thing you read/watched?
3. What are you looking forward to right now?
Feel free to ignore these questions and replace them with anything else you want to talk about! It's your introduction!
no subject
Date: 2017-10-31 05:07 pm (UTC)1. What's the first mystery or other crime fiction you enjoyed?
I was a casual Sherlock Holmes fan as a kid, but wasn't converted to the Agatha Christie style of mystery until I had been an adult for a long time. I also liked to watch Columbo with my grandparents, which might have predated Sherlock Holmes.
2. What's the last thing you read/watched?
Death on the Nile, a classic of the "multiple murders in a confined space" subgenre (and one of my favorites).
3. What are you looking forward to right now?
The new Murder on the Orient Express movie, but also the latest Charles Lenox mystery by Charles Finch (yes, the author named his historical detective after himself, no, it's probably not a coincidence) which I thought was due out sooner, but actually won't be out until February. Oh, well!
I'm looking forward to meeting you all! (or meeting you again, in some cases).
no subject
Date: 2017-11-01 01:23 am (UTC)Last thing I watched a Sherlock Holmes story courtesy of Kindle Unlimited Sherlock Holmes and The Missing Shakespeare . The characterisation wasn't too bad, though the denouement was a little muddled.
What I'm looking forward to ... The next episode of Lucifer and The Murdoch Mysteries
no subject
Date: 2017-10-31 05:17 pm (UTC)Inspector Alleyn stories by Ngaio Marsh - my late father had a set of them (goodness knows why - he hardly ever read anything except the newspaper!). I moved onto Agatha Christie (also his) after that - but I'm afraid neither Poirot nor Marple could compare with Roderick Alleyn! (Though I'm partial to David Suchet's Poirot on the telly!)
2. What's the last thing you read/watched?
Crime-wise? Good lord, I've no idea - it's been an age. Possibly Foyle's War. Book-wise - er.... Oh! The first of Nicola Upson's Josephine Tey novels - I re-read that one relatively recently.
3. What are you looking forward to right now?
I'm thinking about re-reading the Sayers Harriet Vane & Peter Wimsey novels in the not-too-distant future. I prefer Wimsey tempered by Vane - on his own he tends to annoy me.
Oh and the next season of Endeavour on TV!
Besides Ngaio Marsh, I'm a fan of Josephine Tey's novels (except 'Miss Pym Disposes' to which I have a very violently visceral reaction because I HATE injustice!) - I especially love 'Brat Farrar', 'The Singing Sands', and 'Daughter of Time'. I really enjoyed Foyle's War and miss it quite a lot. Also loved Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries on TV. I enjoy Laurie R King's Holmes and Mary Russell books and Jill Paton Walsh's Imogen Quy quartet. LOVING Endeavour (marginally more than either Inspector Morse or Lewis - 'cos Shaun Evans' baby!Morse is so lovely!)
TBH, after SF&F, murder-mystery/detective fiction's my fave genre.
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Date: 2017-10-31 05:37 pm (UTC)I love Wimsey to bits, but his being the most annoying person in any given room is more of a feature for me than a bug.
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Date: 2017-10-31 05:40 pm (UTC)Yes I think I'd prefer to spend an afternoon with Grant fishing while I read a book.
I can't recall which one of the solo Wimsey books I read first, I just know he annoyed me. But then I heard a radio production of 'Strong Poison' and more or less forgave him everything for the sake of Harriet Vane!
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Date: 2017-10-31 05:46 pm (UTC)You and me both. Is it just a coincidence that both mods of a crime comm have the same suspicious eye colour or does it bode something more sinister? Should our innocent members beware?
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Date: 2017-10-31 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-31 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-31 05:39 pm (UTC)My mother passed on some of the old blue covered Nancy Drews to me along with some Trixie Beldens. She picked up other old girls' mysteries for me, too, Judy Bolton and the Dana Girls come to mind. Then I branched out to the Three Investigators (and desperately wanted their secret headquarters). Let's see... There was also Brains Benton and some others that I'm not remembering.
I don't remember the first mystery I read that was aimed at adults. My mother liked picking up used paperback mysteries, so they were all over the house. Our local library was tiny with about six shelves (not cases but shelves) of mysteries and four or five of SF/fantasy. During the years I lived there, I tried a lot of things that I thought I wasn't going to like.
My tendency, though, is to like mysteries for things other than the puzzle aspect, so I'm never quite sure that I like mysteries as mysteries or whether I just like some authors/series anyway.
2. What's the last thing you read/watched?
I'm currently watching season 2 of Person of Interest, and I just finished Donna Andrew's How the Finch Stole Christmas. Before that, I read The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas and was surprised by how much I liked it.
3. What are you looking forward to right now?
I've got a hold on the next book in the series that starts with The Chalk Circle Man. I very much want to read it.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-31 05:45 pm (UTC)I started young with the Five Find-Outers and Dog series by Enid Blyton! It introduced me to Clues, Eccentric Detectives, Red Herrings, Disguises & that nifty trick with the key, the newspaper sheet and the locked door at a young age.
I'm not sure which was the first one I read as an adult - possibly The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins during my teen classics kick, before finally deciding that actually Agatha Christie wasn't as scary as my youthful fear of the 1980s Miss Marple had led me to believe.
2. What's the last thing you read/watched?
Crime-wise, I think The Affair of the Mutilated Mink by James Anderson, which I hadn't heard of before, but was a loving Golden Age pastiche. I'll have to see if I can find the other two some time.
3. What are you looking forward to right now?
Again, crime-wise, I'm not sure, but I've just got started on the Daisy Dalrymple books which are nice and easy (brain is in short supply currently) and I'd like to read the rest if they continue in the same vein.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-31 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-11-02 10:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-31 07:44 pm (UTC)Probably the Ladybird abridgement of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Bundled with the reading on cassette tape, which my brother and I listened endlessly to on car journeys.
Golden Ashes, by Freeman Wills Crofts — I seem to be engaged in rereading my collection of Crofts books at the moment. They're not books to read for engaging characters or psychological depth, but one gets interesting sidelights on 1930s life and industry.
My latest first-time read was Georgia Disappeared by Ellen Godfrey, which gets points from me for the Marian Halcombe references.
The Edmund Crispin books in my to-read pile.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-31 08:06 pm (UTC)The local PBS station is very generous with its British and Down Under mysteries. We get 3 or 4 days of them when the station isn't fundraising. Last night I watched Father Brown, Miss Fisher and Dr. Blake. And I'll watch a Midsomer Murder when ever I can.
Looking forward to (hoping for) more Midsomers or Brokenwood Mysteries.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-31 10:01 pm (UTC)Outside of kids' mystery books, probably Law and Order, once I was old enough to watch it.
2. What's the last thing you read/watched?
I'm currently reading a collection of Anna Katherine Green's works - I'm in the middle of The Leavenworth Case at the moment.
3. What are you looking forward to right now?
Finishing my re-read of the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service manga that I have, and resuming my attempt to catch up on the Detective Conan anime.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-31 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-11-01 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-31 10:22 pm (UTC)Oh dear, timeline? The first mystery books I remember were, like someone already mentioned above, those by Enid Blyton. On TV I remember Scarecrow & Mrs King, Simon & Simon and some German shows like Der Fahnder. I also remember loving several different German audio-dramas, like TKKG and Die Pizza-Bande.
2. What's the last thing you read/watched?
Crime? Does Hustle count? They are criminals... other than that, there are currently new episodes of my beloved SOKO Donau/Wien out. I haven't read a mystery novel in a while, the last one might have been a Johnny Mann ebook I picked up only for the hero's name. It was a little too brutal for me in some scenes so I'm not sure if I want to try another one.
3. What are you looking forward to right now?
When it comes to mystery, crime and detectives? Tough. The upcoming SOKO episodes. Other than that, there's nothing specific on my list. Well, I learned through this comm that there's a new Agatha Raisin book out so I'll try to hunt down the audio-version of that. I'm mostly catching reruns of old Midsomer Murders or German shows (like Ein Starkes Team) otherwise. I have no idea what new things might be coming out of the UK or US markets as I haven't been paying attention.
Well, next year is bound to bring a new Alex Delaware and a new Cooper & Fry novel, two books I'll have on preorder months before their release. Those are two series I need to get my hands on as soon as new books are released.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-02 04:33 pm (UTC)Was the hero's name Johnny Mann, or something even better?
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Date: 2017-11-02 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-11-01 03:37 pm (UTC)Ah the Famous Five how could I have forgotten them? I got into Christie as a teenager and another person in my English class did so I guess we spurred each other on. Tellywise the original 'Inspector Morse'. It was immense.
2. What's the last thing you read/watched?
'Revelation' by CJ Sansom, not his best as neither he or Shardlake are serial killer genre types. 'Murdoch Mysteries' which is relying heavily on the audiences memory for occasional re-occurring characters and I don't have the memory!
3. What are you looking forward to right now?
I have a Arthurian mystery and an Ellis Peters on the TBR pile so those?
no subject
Date: 2017-11-02 04:32 pm (UTC)I've had this problem with Ngaio Marsh a couple of times - and with Christie to some extent, though in Christie if I'm going to forget a character I usually forget him completely and so just don't notice at all that he's supposed to be recurring, rather than being troubled by confusion.
My firm intention to read more Ellis Peters keeps being thwarted. Everywhere I go, I find the twenty-second or the eighteenth book in the Cadfael series, when what I want is the second. I could just grab Book Eighteen, but I want my nuanced character progression, damn it! Eventually I'll bite the bullet and order it from Amazon.
(and I just looked up how to spell "Cadfael" and was reminded for probably the fortieth time that DEREK JACOBI is in the TV series! I keep getting excited about that and forgetting again *shakes head sadly*).
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Date: 2017-11-02 04:51 pm (UTC)Yes! I did enjoy the TV series back when it first aired, haven't seen it since.
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Date: 2017-11-05 11:29 am (UTC)I mean, I know Catholics have dealt with prejudice, but that was just such egregious racism, and so far beyond what I find acceptable that I quit in a rage and haven't gone back. (It didn't help that they also fridged a lesbian woman simply for the sake of giving her partner gal-pain.)
no subject
Date: 2017-11-05 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-11-05 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-11-02 04:28 am (UTC)1. The first mystery I read? Probably one of the Biggles Air Police stories. Not the best of the Biggles oeuvre, but I always enjoyed the flying elements. Of course I was in love with Biggles. Still am, TBH.
2. Last thing I read/watched. "Evil under the Sun"! And the twist took me completely by surprise. How on Earth did AC don it? I'm now on "Death Comes as the End" and I'm enjoying the Ancient Egyptian elements; I have the feeling that it was pure self-indulgence for AC.
3. What am I looking forward to? "Murder on the Orient Express"! I'll watch Branagh in anything, and I'm utterly fascinated by that moustache, in a "can even KB carry that off?" kind of way.
no subject
Date: 2017-11-02 04:23 pm (UTC)An extravagant stache for extravagant greatness! I'm guaranteed to enjoy Murder on the Orient Express regardless of how good or bad it is.
I didn't realize Biggles was detection - I had a vague osmosis about sports adventures that I never bothered to investigate further. Maybe I should remedy that?
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Date: 2017-11-02 10:33 pm (UTC)My library system doesn't have a complete collection so I'm grabbing them as they appear on the shelves, with a vague underpinning of "the interwar ones are probably best to start with." This was in a Reader's Digest one-volume set of three which had been given to the library and it's been taken out an awful lot of times! Quality counts.
The Biggles Air Police stories probably aren't worth your while; they're generally reckoned to be the weakest in the canon. The best are the Great War stories; the author was an RFC pilot himself until he got shot down and they're astonishingly vivid and, for children's stories, don't pull any punches. But the mystery element is all but non-existent in these; it only gets front and centre when the author, um, ran out of wars. To put it very crudely. :(