![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So I managed two books this month:
The Mysterious Mister Quin [1930] is the first Harley Quin book, a collection of short stories introducing Harley Quin and Mister Satterthwaite. Mister Satterthwaite is an observant man in his 60's and Harley Quin is a mysterious figure who appears and disappears and encourages or invites Mister Satterthwaite to investigate or contemplate and ultimately resolve puzzles, mysteries, injustices that come across his path. For all the stories, the incident now is always related to something that's happened before.
I listened to an audiobook of the whole thing with Hugh Fraser narrating. Then I listened on Youtube to Martin Jarvis doing the first 6 in the collection. The problem with Martin Jarvis is that he did the audiobook of Good Omens and it's difficult for me not to hear his Aziraphale voice and his Crowley voice.
Mister Satterthwaite is a snob and a grump and a curmudgeon, but I liked the element of him finding his purpose and a reason to live in solving these puzzles and Harley Quin is so nebulous that I've decided to write a story 'The First Rule of Harley Quin is that We Do Not Talk about Harley Quin' in the manner of Fight Club, and Mister Satterthwaite coming to realize that Harley Quin and he are the same person.
I've used "The Soul of the Croupier" in a ficlet for JWP at Watson's Woes.
The second book I just read was on archive.org: Giant's Bread, Agatha Christie writing under the name Mary Westmacott. It was sort of dreary. Imagine the kids from The Secret Garden grow up, WWI happens, and they're all sort of unhappy. One of them gets wounded in the war and has amnesia and shows up after presumed dead for four years. Consumption. Ships hitting icebergs. Opera. Horrible mothers. And fathers. Bleh.
But none of that matters because guess what's next? MURDER AT THE VICARAGE! Woo-hoo! Guess whose clock is 15 minutes fast? And who has brought the wrong rock for Miss Marple's rock garden?
The Mysterious Mister Quin [1930] is the first Harley Quin book, a collection of short stories introducing Harley Quin and Mister Satterthwaite. Mister Satterthwaite is an observant man in his 60's and Harley Quin is a mysterious figure who appears and disappears and encourages or invites Mister Satterthwaite to investigate or contemplate and ultimately resolve puzzles, mysteries, injustices that come across his path. For all the stories, the incident now is always related to something that's happened before.
I listened to an audiobook of the whole thing with Hugh Fraser narrating. Then I listened on Youtube to Martin Jarvis doing the first 6 in the collection. The problem with Martin Jarvis is that he did the audiobook of Good Omens and it's difficult for me not to hear his Aziraphale voice and his Crowley voice.
Mister Satterthwaite is a snob and a grump and a curmudgeon, but I liked the element of him finding his purpose and a reason to live in solving these puzzles and Harley Quin is so nebulous that I've decided to write a story 'The First Rule of Harley Quin is that We Do Not Talk about Harley Quin' in the manner of Fight Club, and Mister Satterthwaite coming to realize that Harley Quin and he are the same person.
I've used "The Soul of the Croupier" in a ficlet for JWP at Watson's Woes.
The second book I just read was on archive.org: Giant's Bread, Agatha Christie writing under the name Mary Westmacott. It was sort of dreary. Imagine the kids from The Secret Garden grow up, WWI happens, and they're all sort of unhappy. One of them gets wounded in the war and has amnesia and shows up after presumed dead for four years. Consumption. Ships hitting icebergs. Opera. Horrible mothers. And fathers. Bleh.
But none of that matters because guess what's next? MURDER AT THE VICARAGE! Woo-hoo! Guess whose clock is 15 minutes fast? And who has brought the wrong rock for Miss Marple's rock garden?