Léon
dir. Luc Besson (1994)
A moving friendship tale that stops just short of Lolita-ism and owes its impact more to the acting talents of Jean Reno, Natalie Portman (on debut) and Gary Oldman than to writer-director Luc Besson’s attempts to bring French sensibilities to American film-making.
Flying too High
by Kerry Greenwood (Penguin, 1990); audiobook read by Stephanie Daniel (Bolinda, 2011)
Two fairly straightforward cases (not investigations as such) brought concurrently to heel by the redoubtable Miss Fisher. In prose and plot, this is a simpler novel than Cocaine Blues. Nonetheless it sails along nicely on the strength of its characters and setting.
Carmilla
by Sheridan Le Fanu (The Dark Blue, 1871-1872)
A very early vampire novella, constrained by attitudes of the time yet nonetheless pursuing a lesbian angle and affording an uncommon measure of female empowerment. Le Fanu for the most part hints subtly at the supernatural, but resorts at last to exposition.
The Lightless Dome
by Douglas Hill (Pan, 1993)
Book one in a high fantasy duology that was to have been a trilogy. Hill constructs a plot much like those of his MG books, only with sex and a heavier writing style. The result is serviceable but relatively awkward and uninspiring.
The Case of the Gilded Fly
by Edmund Crispin (Victor Gollancz, 1944); audiobook read by Paul Panting (HarperCollins, 2017)
Crispin’s quasi-humorous style (satirically intended but sordidly directed) comes across merely as tiresome. The mystery’s ‘ingenious’ solution proves elusive mostly due to being ludicrously improbable and thoroughly reliant on coincidences. Gervase Fen, though a striking protagonist, doesn’t appear for the first quarter.
Death at the Bar
by Ngaio Marsh (Collins, 1940); audiobook read by Nadia May (Blackstone Audio, 1976)
Marsh withholds her protagonist from the early pages in favour of a lengthy set-up, which is reiterated at the inquest and then rehashed a second time when Alleyn, whose personality remains by far the novel’s chief appeal, is finally permitted to investigate.
The Mystery of Banshee Towers
by Enid Blyton (Methuen, 1961)
The Five Find-Outers’ swansong comes after a four-year break and proves sadly anticlimactic. Banshee Towers is a breezy read but Fatty is a shadow of his former self and the mystery itself is lamentable. (In fact, the villainy makes no sense whatsoever!)
A Damsel in Distress
by P G Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins, 1919); audiobook read by Frederick Davidson (Blackstone Audio, 1993)
For readers without a Blandings Castle novel to hand, this early Wodehouse comedy will oblige most admirably as a surrogate. While the plot involves misunderstandings of romantic entanglement, these serve merely to backdrop the page-by-page brush swirl of Wodehouse’s exquisitely trenchant prose.
The Mystery of the Strange Messages
by Enid Blyton (Methuen, 1957)
A return to form, despite some glaring continuity issues. There’s a freshness to the storytelling (less happenstance and more from Goon’s perspective) and Blyton structures the plot more tightly around the mystery and its investigation. One of the better Five Find-Outers books.
K-9 and Company: A Girl’s Best Friend
by Terence Dudley; dir. John Black (BBC, 1981)
A bizarrely misjudged attempt at a Doctor Who spin-off. Elisabeth Sladen and Ian Sears do well but the opening credits scream allegiance to Metal Mickey and this synth-schlock carries over into the incidental music, flambéing all menace from the Devil’s End plot.