Poirot Redux: Sophie Hannah’s The Killings at Kingfisher Hill

Wow, was this book a disappointment. I read another book by Sophie Hannah recently - The Wrong Mother - and it was complex, suspenseful, and engrossing. After that, I was excited to see how Hannah was continuing Agatha Christie’s Poirot stories. As the only writer authorized by the Christie estate, she has been vetted and deemed the fitting person to continue the Christie tradition. The official Christie website describes her first Poirot novel, The Monogram Murders, as "a thoroughly stylish affair, faithful to Christie's story-telling style, yet with a modern touch." High praise indeed. 

And, yes, this story does echo Christie in some ways. It has all of the needless complexity of a Christie story, setting up a crime so convoluted that it feels completely divorced from real life.

However, in this case it has none of the charm or fluidity of Christie’s novels. The opening sequence sets up the scenario, but it is so incoherent that it seems hardly worth following. None of the characters seem remotely plausible, and the action is narrated in a way that makes it seem like it has its own time scheme. For instance, the Hastings character (here reimagined as Inspector Catchpool) has an extended interchange on a bus with a woman about the title of a book she’s reading. This scene feels like it goes on forever, and we’re supposed to believe that this happens while a line of people are waiting for him to move along so they can take their seats. I was expecting him to be the first murder victim. 

In addition to the unbelievable characters and unlikely pacing of the action, this novel includes endless - I mean, pages and pages - of exposition. Very little action occurs, but there sure is a lot of tedious explaining. 

I was very much inclined to like this novel, so I was surprised that narrative's execution was so disappointing. It didn’t help that the convoluted solution isn’t even particularly interesting.

I’m likely to pick up more of Sophie Hannah’s non-Poirot novels, but I can’t say the same for the Christie continuations.

I received an arc of this novel from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

A Quick Take on Leigh Stein's Self Care

I need a cleanse of my own after reading Leigh Stein's new novel, Self Care. 

There was a lot of pre-publication buzz about this book, so I suspect that I'm in the minority on this because I really did not enjoy this novel. The character development is very cliched, it lacks depth, and the structure of the novel needed more editing to give it more shape. Stein brings in sexual assault charges and childhood trauma at the end in what feels like an unsuccessful and emotionally-loaded attempt to add depth. 

And I'm not at all sure what to make of the ending. What am I supposed to take away from it? It just made me mad, but I'm not sure that's the effect Stein was going for.

Overall, the topic of this novel is timely and appealing, but ultimately I found it unsatisfying.

I received an ARC of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Pull of the Stars: Emma Donoghue's Eerily Well-Timed Novel about the 1918 Flu Pandemic

"Battling the Flu Pandemic 1918," GPA Photo Archive CC BY-NC 2.0

The timing of Emma Donoghue's new book, The Pull of the Stars, is eerie. It's about a nurse working in a Dublin maternity ward during the 1918 flu pandemic. It is so good, right from the beginning. Donoghue brings you right into the character's head from the first page, and she evokes a completely realized world of mask wearers and public health scoffers. In one memorable scene, Nurse Julia Powers walks along the street and notices a sign warning people not to spread the flu by spitting - and the sign itself is plastered with spit.

Monthly Bulletin, Philadelphia Dept. of Public Health (1919).

HathiTrust

The novel takes place over the course of two days during which Powers battles to save women and their babies in her small ward, while also battling her own distractions in the form of  her shell-shocked brother and animosities within the hospital. At her side is Bridie, a completely inexperienced volunteer whose willingness to help is more useful than the inattentive care of most of the doctors in the hospital.

No characters or situations are left undeveloped, and, against the backdrop of WWI, this contained world holds all the drama of a battlefield. As Powers says when overhearing discussions about the possibility of peace, "It occurred to me that in the case of this flu there could be no signing a pact with it; what we waged in hospitals was a war of attrition, a battle over each and every body." Her efforts to save her patients, backed up by her deep knowledge of nursing, is portrayed as a fight that she is determined not to lose if there's anything in her power to stop it.

Powers also uses the language of the battlefield to describe women's experience of childbirth. She argues strongly against the moralizing of her fellow ward sister who sees unmarried motherhood as a sin that must be punished. Likewise, she refuses to write off the chances of poor women who arrive malnourished and carrying evidence of domestic abuse. When an orderly argues that women haven't earned the right to vote because they don't pay the "blood tax" of fighting wars, Powers tells him to "Look around you, Mr. Groyne. This is where every nation draws its first breath. Women have been paying the blood tax since time began." Herself unmarried and childless, Powers sees sacrifice and strength in the act of childbearing.

Fair warning - there are a lot of graphic scenes of difficult births, but overall this is a gorgeous novel.

I received an ARC of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.