Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Georgette Heyer

A contributor to DorothyL pointed out it was/is Georgette Heyer's birthday today. She was born in 1902, died in 1974. Whilst at university my flatmates and I pooled and devoured Heyer's regency romances. I've still a few left to read. I did try one of her crime novels, 'A Blunt Instrument', but found the culprint very obvious and was rather disappointed. However a couple of years ago, my reading group 'did' classic crime one month and that included 'Behold, Here's Poison' which I absolutely loved. It was very amusing, a good whodunnit and the hero in it reminded me of her regency heroes. I still haven't read anymore but am willing to try them. The Heyer books have been given spiffy new covers recently, including the crime novels.

When Gregory Matthews, patriarch of the Poplars is found dead one morning, imperious Aunt Harriet blames it on the roast duck he ate for supper, after all, she had warned him about his blood pressure. But a post-mortem determines that the cause of death is much more sinister. Murder by poison. Suspicion falls immediately amongst his bitter, quarrelsome family. Each has a motive; each, opportunity. It falls to Superintendent Hannasyde to sift through all the secrets and lies and discover just who killed Gregory Matthews, before the killer strikes again...(from amazon.co.uk)

2 comments:

Maxine Clarke said...

Have you seen the blog "Another 52 books" by Bibliophile (Beth)? She's reviewed GH's books recently, eg:
http://52books.blogspot.com/2006/02/mystery-writer-8-georgette-heyer.html
(incl. comment from me!)

Incidentally, Beth is icelandic so has read the Arnaldur Indridasons that haven't been translated yet, lucky her.

Nicholas Borelli said...

May I suggest my novel for your reading group? It is available as a very inexpensive eBook at www.nicholasborelli.com. The full first chapter is excerpted there and you can determine if you would like to read on. In addition my bio and a discussion of my other novels is also there. You may eMail me from or link to my blog, where you can read my other writings and comment as well.

Thank you and regards,

Nicholas Borelli