LITERATURE & BOOKS

Book Fever
By Marcia Loy April 11, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Classic British mysteries

There are far too many people born into the world, and far too many words written. Millions and millions of them pouring from the presses every minutes. It’s a horrible thought.

—Inspector Alan Grant (Josephine Tey)

When the Book Fever column on Agatha Christie came out, my friend Miriam expressed surprise that Christie was my favorite British classic mystery writer. She said she preferred Josephine Tey. Of course I came home, discovered one of her novels on my own bookshelves and delved in. Wow, she’s good. Here’s my report on her mystery as well as two other classic British authors. All the books mentioned are in the library.

The Daughter in Time, Josephine Tey, 1951. What an intriguing plot! Inspector Grant is in the hospital recovering from an accident and bored with the books at his bedside. His friend brings him pictures of faces from history. One in particular intrigues him.

Excerpt: Grant paused... to consider the face a moment longer. A judge? A soldier? A prince? Someone used to great responsibility, and responsible in his authority. Someone too conscientious. A worrier; perhaps a perfectionist. A man at ease in a large design, but anxious over details. A candidate for gastric ulcer. Someone, too, who had suffered ill-health as a child. He had that incommunicable, that indescribable look that childhood suffering leaves behind it, less positive than the look on a cripple’s face, but as inescapable.

When Grant turns over the picture he finds it’s Richard III and he sets out to decide for himself if this man could have murdered his two nephews to become king of England. With the help of a young American researcher, he solves, to his satisfaction, what happened in the fifteenth century.


Rumpole on Trial, John Mortimer, 1992. I first encountered Rumpole on PBS several years ago and, in this volume, the gang’s all here. Horace Rumpole, his wife Hilda (my favorite character but to Horace, “She Who Must Be Obeyed”), Claude Erskine-Brown, Phillida Erskine-Brown, Guthrie Featherstone, Samuel Ballard and the other colorful characters who comprise Rumpole’s chambers. And of course the people who keep him solvent, the luckless criminal clan, the Timsons. This book contains seven adventures of Rumpole.


Excerpt (from “Rumpole and the Children of the Devil”): Childhood has, I regret to say, like much else, got worse since I was a boy. We had school bullies, we had headmasters who were apparently direct descendants of Captain Bligh of the Bounty, we had cold baths, inedible food and long hours in chapel on Sundays, but there was one compensation. No one had invented social workers. Now British children, it seems, can expect the treatment we once thought was only meted out to the political opponents of the late unlamented Joseph Stalin. They must learn to dread the knock on the door, the tramp of the Old Bill up the stairs, and being snatched from their nearest and dearest by a member of the alleged caring profession.

A Murder of Quality, John le Carré, 1962. Here’s George Smiley, that “breathtakingly ordinary” spy, investigating a murder at Carne School, a public (i.e., private) school where “the prince” attends. The victim has written a letter to a Christian publication in London claiming her husband is going to murder her. The editor, Miss Brimley, asks Smiley to look into it. He learns the victim has indeed been murdered, but did the husband do it?

Excerpt: When he had read [the letter], he held it briefly towards the lamp, his round face caught by the light in a moment of almost comic earnestness. Watching him, Miss Brimley wondered what impression he made on those who did not know him well. She used to think of him as the most forgettable man she had ever met; short and plump, with heavy spectacles and thinning hair, he was at first sight the very prototype of an unsuccessful middle-aged bachelor in a sedentary occupation. His natural diffidence in most practical matters was reflected in his clothes, which were costly and unsuitable, for he was clay in the hands of his tailor, who robbed him.

Marcia Loy is a member of the steering committee of the Authors’ Sala and a volunteer at the Biblioteca Pública.

Cervantes, Shakespeare: Literary Cultural Week 2008
By Víctor Sahuatoba

Literary Cultural Week
Apr 19–26
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25

Imagine Miguel Cervantes and William Shakespeare having coffee at Starbucks in San Miguel. They talk about a date, April 23, 1616, when two of the most famous writers of Madrid and London died. They were so famous their respective languages are called the language of Cervantes and the language of Shakespeare. In 1995, UNESCO declared International Book Day and Author’s copyright on April 23 for that reason.

Miguel and William scan a bilingual pamphlet there, “Since we opened our first coffee shop in Seattle in 1971 in Pike Place Market, we have continued looking for the best coffee in the world.” They were interrupted by noises of a demonstration outside. More than 23 local coffee shops protested. The owners declared that, “Restaurants in San Miguel also offer good coffee and the money is for our city. Money from big coffee chains goes away. Other people complained that “Starbucks Coffee” is in English right at calle Hidalgo and Jardín Principal.

The second Literary Cultural Week is organized by the Biblioteca Pública and the Fundación Cultural un Chorro de Literatura, A.C in coordination with Bellas Artes and Authors’ Sala.