Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

I'm wallowing in the pleasant after-glow of a very good book. It's a bit like waking up from a lovely dream and wanting to hang on to it just a little longer. The book had a rather violent end but it all worked out perfectly in the epilogue, and I feel smugly satisfied that I anticipated a number of the plot twists before they became too obvious. There's a real nack to pulling that off in detective stories: you don't want to give too much away too soon, but allowing me to figure things out just slightly before you spell it out for me makes me very happy.

I think that's why I don't like Agatha Christie very much: she introduces too many wild cards so you just can't figure it out for yourself. There you are suspecting the parson when she tells you that the butler's alibi was entirely fictitious and he was famed for his skill at archery in his youth. It's just plain annoying -- there's no scope for stretching my intellect, unless I try to guess who the culprit is based on who it's most unlikely to be.

This was the first book I've read that was set in the Second World War without being too grim about it. It wasn't as though everything was rosy; in fact, several people were killed because of the dangers of the blackout, nobody could travel anywhere because of petrol shortages, several people's houses were destroyed by bombs and nobody had anything nice to eat (except Aunt Maud). But I felt I understood it a lot more as a result, I feel much closer to understanding what living with rations actually meant when you were trying to cook a meal. I'm not a big war-head (quelle surprise!) but I did find myself interested in the war for the first time in this book.

Just one criticism: dear old Rennie needs to move away from ending all his books in isolated country houses (with such-and-such baking bread and such-and-such-other off milking the cows) with the killer breaking in and John Madden fighting them off bare-handed. It made for a good read but it did seem a little familiar, and when you've only written three JM books that's a bad thing. But he's one of my favourite authors anyway, and the great thing is that unlike many of my other favourite detective story authors, he's actually alive so there's a good chance he might write more books for me.

I bought five other books last week in a little literary spree (how could I not? I visited John Sandoe and there's a new book stall in the market that sells very good second hand books for £2) so I'll report on those once I've read them all.