Men of subtle craft

I do love a Collins Crime Club story from the 1970s and 1980s me. Often they featured amateur detectives who has quite mundane day jobs, but who seemed to get involved in investigating murder or other serious crimes quite a bit.

Men of subtle craft by Roy Lewis (1987) is about a council planner turned amateur historian called Arthur Landon who is asked to help out in a rather obscure academic argument over a medieval mason. While Landon is travelling around the rural north on both council and historical business, he becomes involved in a bitter local dispute over inheritance and broken marriages. This eventually results in a murder with a rather unusual MO, though the murder does not occur until quite late in the story.

The story takes a while to get going though does help build the characters nicely. The historical sub-plot can be a bit impenetrable at times and doesn't really have anything to do with the crime but does provide a setting and a few red herrings. The final act ups the pace considerably. A fine read.

Stratoship H.22 (1) : Mr Pump's legacy

Herge's Tintin is world famous of course, and rightly so, but Herge drew other comic strips too including the adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko. Jo and Zette are two children who get into adventures with their pet chimp Jocko, though the adventures are usually facilitated by their engineer Father.

In this adventure Jo, Zette and Jocko end up flying an advanced new aeroplane that is trying to win a prize by crossing the Atlantic in the fastest time yet.

The comic strip is truly beautifully drawn, and wonderfully reproduced here with some of the cleanest lines i've ever seen in a ligne claire strip. It is a true period piece set in the 1930s with a heavy dose of art deco, especially in the aeroplane, the Stratoship H.22.

There is a good plot too with other powers trying to sabotage the record attempt. How the children manage to end up flying the plane is a bit contrived maybe but it nicely sets up part 2 of the story as they fly off lost...

The only criticism i have is that Jocko is a bit annoying though does provide some needed comic relief at times. It's not Tintin but it is an excellent comic adventure in its own right.

Welcome to Morton Bagot

Welcome to my book review blog. I will only review books that i actually want to read so it is likely the majority of reviews will be positive. Well there is enough negativity in the world already. I will review all sorts of stuff, ranging from crime novels to graphic novels to non-fiction. I am not trying to flog anything so i will not put any affiliate or purchasing links but of course please buy a book which sounds of interest from your favourite emporium.

I am a published author myself so will also sometimes write about those trials and tribulations. I will put links to buy these books!

There will also be some posts on historical items of interest such as county parish churches, well of interest to me anyway. All photographs in the blog are by myself except for book covers.

As to Morton Bagot itself, it is a village in Warwickshire. I haven't been to it yet.