TWENTY YEARS AFTER - Alexandre Dumas

Twenty years after the "Three Musketeers" only D'Artagnan is still a Musketeer.  The other three have left the service and are living separate lives.

The story has D'Artagnan and Porthos working for the Queen Regent, Ann of Austria and the niggardly Cardinal Mazarin, while Aramis and Athos are trying to save Charles the First.

Milady's son puts in an appearance trying to revenge his mother and then is much "daring do " plotting and general mayhem with Paris in uproar and Cromwell running England.

It is very slow for the first 200 pages but picks up and I enjoyed it more than "The Three Musketeers"

What I didn't know was D'Artagnan is based on a real person.

THE COMPLETE STORIES OF EVELYN WAUGH - Evelyn Waugh

The title of this American collection is a bit of an exaggeration but it does bring together pieces rarely seen.

There are a couple of alternative novel endings, some short stories and starts of uncompleted novels.

Anyway, anything written by Waugh is worth reading and then re-reading.

THE POWER AND THE GLORY - Graham Greene

The story of the whiskey priest who is imperfect as the rest of us but trying to be a priest and live  with some dignity while being hunted by a socailist government.

At school this was held up as a sign that the 'church' will always survive despite being populated by imperfect humans.  On this re-read I found the policeman charged with hunting the priest down to his death have a better understanding of faith than the priest.

This is a fantastic book and I dear say you could read it a dozen times and draw a dozen different conclusion.

Greene or Waugh, Waugh or Greene I will never be able to decide who is the best , so I'll just keep reading and re-reading

DEATH OF A GHOST - Margery Allingham

A murder is committed at a gallery preview of a painting by of a long dead painter.

Albert Campion is on hand and leads an investigation into murder in the art world.

Allingham is with Tey and Sayers as the very best of the 'golden age' crime writers. The difference for her is some of her stories are almost Wodehousian and others very serious like this one.

She has a great body of work and it is all very readable.

BOMBER COMMAND - Max Hastings

Amazing history of  what has turned out to be a much vilified action of the second world war.

Yes, thousands of civilians were killed, yes, perhaps they should have stopped  in 1945 but for me the heart of this book is the young men who went up to their deaths every night.

Like much war history you read it and think how the hell did the Allies win such was the incompetence of much if the leadership.  But they managed it and it was down to the bravery and sacrifices made by thousands.

This is a very good history and an easy read like all of Hasting's work.

MAIGRET AND THE MADWOMAN - Georges Simenon

An old lady is pestering Maigret that some one is getting into her apartment and moving things about.  She is dismissed as a madwoman until found dead.

You can't go wrong with a Maigret, an absolute pleasure to read.

FATES WORSE THEN DEATH - Kurt Vonnegut

This is a collection of essays and speeches by Vonnegut from his long career.  They will make you laugh , they will make you cry,his writing is simply amazing.

And as I do after I've read anything amazing written by him I wonder would he have written so marvelously if he hadn't been trapped in Dresden during the fire bombing of the city.

MORE DEATHS THAN ONE - Rex Stout

A guest of a live radio show dies and it is found to be murder.

This is a very good Stout, good plot and Wolfe's at his rudest.

Its a shame that paperbacks went through the phase of horrid covers in the 1970's like this edition has.  The book was first published in 1949 and is much better then the poor cover here which I imagine would put people off..

WORLDS FAIR - E. L Doctorow

Described as a semi autobiographical account of a boy named Edgar growing up in New York during the depression leading up to the World Fair in 1939.

I found it fully autobiographical and tedious.  Why he chose to do it this way when a full memoir would have made more sense to me anyway.

 Doctorow is a great writer but this like Loon Lake left me disappointed

BONY AND THE MOUSE - Arthur Upfield

Bony goes undercover in a small out back town and as usual there are murders an intrigues.

You can't go wrong with Upfield.  The language and views are dated but adults can see through this.

I was speaking with an elderly book seller recently whose eye sight is failing and she said the Upfield talking books she gets from the Sydney library have a disclosure regarding the language and views written by the author so as not to shock younger listeners.  She found this hugely amusing.

A CONNOISSEUR'S CASE - Michael Innes

Appleby becomes involved with a murder after a body is found in a lock,leading to an investigation involving all sorts of crimes.

Innes is very slow to start but his stories do pick up you just have to stick with it.

A fairly obvious murder with a major cheat which ruined the result for this reader.

MURDER BY THE BOOK - Rex Stout

A run of the mill Stout so it better than much of the genre , great use of the language as usual but middle of the pack plot wise.