At the University: Parting Breath and Lucky Jim

As fate would have it, I am reading two books both of which take place on British university campuses. Just the tales to cuddle up with as the days are beginning to cool down.

The first is Parting Breath (1977) by Catherine Aird. This was next in line in her series that I am reading featuring Detective Chief Inspector C.D. Sloan and his ever clueless Constable Crosby. It is a very literary mystery and part of the plot (very minor) involves a stolen letter that supposedly revealed the mystery lover of Jane Austen. The main mystery has to do with the murder of one of the students - an ecology major. The background to the the murder investigations (yes, there is more than one death on this lively campus) is a sit-in being staged by students in protest of the expelling of a popular student. Maybe not expelled - I think it's called being sent down. Anyway, there is plenty of mayhem in the main quadrangle. 

I find the late-night conversations between Sloan and his boss Superintendent Leeyes to be very funny. Leeyes has a penchant for taking adult education classes and uses his fractured knowledge to confuse and confound poor Sloan who is trying his best out in the world of crime. 

The second book is quite different: Lucky Jim (1954) by Kingsley Amis. This classic campus book (recently reviewed quite nicely by Kat at mirabile dictu) follows the path through academe trudged by Jim Dixon and is filled with cranky dons and charmless women. Quite a comic treat.

The thing about Parting Breath is that Ms. Aird mentions Lucky Jim along with Zuleika Dobson (a university novel by Max
Beerbahm), Hamlet, Alice in Wonderland, P.G. Wodehouse, Oscar Wilde, and two Wordsworths, William and Dorothy.

I'll bet she had a fun time working all those literary references into the story.

The campus book I remember best is A Separate Peace (1959) by John Knowles that takes place at an American prep school.  Another favorite, Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1934) by James Hilton, is set at a British boarding school. 


I would love to spend a toasty fall semester at a university if only I could just attend class and not have to be bothered with homework. For now, though,  I will have to be content reading about the academic life.

Any campus books you would care to recommend?

The Body in the Convent

Catherine Aird's works recently appeared mysteriously on the ebook library shelves. As this was soon after I finished attending the library's History of Mystery class, I am wondering if perhaps this is a happy coincidence.

Ms. Aird (whose real name is Kinn Hamilton McIntosh) is a British crime fiction writer. She was born in 1930, in the midst of the Golden Age of mysteries, and has so far published more than twenty crime novels and a few collections of short stories. 

I am reading her first effort, The Religious Body, which was published in 1966. Here she introduces the detective duo of Chief Inspector C.D. Sloan and his young assistant Constable Crosby. The book opens with Sister Mary St. Gertrude making her morning rounds and knocking on bedroom doors to waken the sisters in the Convent of St. Anselm. One nun, Sister Anne, is not in her room and is later discovered dead at the bottom of the cellar steps. Although at first it seems she died from an accidental fall, it turns out that the real cause of death was a blow from the ubiquitous 'blunt instrument'.

How the police and the nuns are going to get on together in the solution to this murder promises to be an interesting read. DCI Sloan has a sly sense of humor that his more naive constable does not often understand. The detectives also are getting assistance from Father MacAuley who seems anxious to help. Or hinder, as the case may be.

So far, I have enjoyed Ms. Aird's  lively writing. It is always a bonus when both the prose and the puzzle are entertaining.

I was thinking about other books I have read that take place in a convent. Here are a few titles I came up with:

Good Behavior by Donald Westlake - In which professional burglar John Dortmunder, in an effort to escape the police, falls through the roof of a convent and agrees to help the nuns rescue one of their own who has been kidnapped by her disapproving father. Very funny.

A Nun in the Closet by Dorothy Gilman - This story, by the author of the Mrs. Pollifax series, doesn't really take place in a convent, but it does involve nuns, a bunch of money, gangsters, and murder. I wrote about it here.

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden - The story of a middle-aged professional woman who joins a contemplative order of Benedictine nuns. No crime here, but if I remember correctly it does contain a mystery. And there is plenty of insider information concerning what goes on behind the convent walls.

I find it fascinating to read about what life is like in these closed communities, murder or no. Do you have any Nun Stories that you have enjoyed and would like to recommend?