Caroline Graham & Midsomer Murders!

[dem]

Caroline Graham - Death Of A Hollow Man (Headline, 1990)

Fred Preston

Blurb:
For Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby a visit to the Causton Amateur Dramatic Society's production of Amadeus is not an ideal evening's entertainment. But loyalty to his wife Joyce means that attending the first night is a must, and Barnaby knows that an immense amount of hard work has gone into the show.

Backstage, nerves are fraying. Director of the play, Harold Winstanley, has introduced a strict pecking order among the cast but the leading man is taking his role far too much to heart. For Salieri (alias Esslyn Carmichael), suspecting that his wife is having an affair, has decided that the stage is as good a place as any to wring the truth out of the guilty party. It is his final act, though, that proves to be a piece de resistance and when the scene takes a particularly gruesome turn, Barnaby finds that his professional skills are called to the fore.

As three hundred page novels go, i've found this incredibly easy to get along with. There's surprisingly little of Inspector Tom Barnaby or Sergeant Troy in the opening hundred pages which Caroline Graham devotes to a very funny account of the Coulston Dramatic Society's desecration of Amadeus, much of this the fault of megalomaniac director, Harold Winstanley. As is often the case in the tv series, the victim, on this occasion one Esslyn Carmichael, is so utterly loathsome that even complete strangers would wish him dead on sight. As the tragic Antonio Salieri, he is called upon to commit suicide but is understandably squeamish at having been provided with such a mean-looking prop. Dierdre Tibbs, the put-upon 'assistant stage manager' (ie, skivvy), evidently has an o-level in health and safety and suggests in all seriousness that the best way to make a straight razor safe is to wind a strip of sellotape around the blade. Of course, come opening night and his big suicide scene, Carmichael is too much of a pro to check that the tape is still there .... Cue male lead hitting the floor with blood gushing from his slit throat! poor Cully Barnaby's expensive frock is saturated!

Barnaby has plenty of suspects but so few clues to go on. Who was the unseen party shagging Carmichael's glamorous wife Kitty in the lighting box during rehearsals? Why was the victim anonymously posted a copy of Floyd On Fish immediately to his murder? What have Carmichael's self-appointed fan club, super-sinister backstabbing toadies the Everard Brothers have to do with it all?

[andydecker]

So, how does the tv-adaption hold up?

I´ve seen it pretty recently and thought it was a lot of fun as they gave much room to the diverse hobby-actors and the complicated going-ons behind the scene of the theatre. There was enough plot for a whole season of Desperate Housewives

[dem]

If this one's anything to go by then the adaptations are very faithful to the spirit of the novels. Caroline Graham has plenty fun with the ghastly luvvies and the hilarious mess they make of rehearsing Amadeus - i was a hundred pages into the book without realising how far i'd got in so little time. Not much by way of violence or bonking, but short as they are, those scenes are worth the wait. Cully Barnaby is as gorgeous in this novel as she is in the adaptations, even if her fashion radar was playing up at the time. "Last time Doris had met Barnaby's daughter the child had sported a green and silver crest of hair, was covered in black leather and hung with chains. Now she had on an acid-yellow evening dress, strapless with a puffball skirt caught in above her knees. Slender black silk stockinged legs ended in high heeled suede shoes with embroidered tongues." One thing; Sergeant Troy comes across as far more of a bigot than he does in the tv series.

i'm certainly keeping a look out for the other five.

[lemming13]

Is it me, or is small town rural England more dangerous than New York to live in? Certainly seems to have a very high murder rate.

[dem]

Caroline Graham - The Killings At Badgers Drift (Headline 1989, originally Hutchinson, 1987).

Carl Hjecte/ Link images

Blurb:
THE FIRST NOVEL IN CAROLINE GRAHAM'S BESTSELLING SERIES STARRING DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR BARNABY.

Badger's Drift is, to all appearances, pretty, quiet and peaceful: the perfect English village. But dark currents run under the surface.
When well-liked villager and spinster Miss Emily Simpson steps out for a gentle stroll in the woods one day, she has no idea she won't be coming back. But she happens to glimpse something amongst the trees, something she was never meant to see, and that means she must be silenced.

Most assume that Miss Simpson's death was natural, but nonetheless, Detective Detective Inspector Barnaby is brought in to investigate.

Sure enough, as he begins to scratch away at the surface of village life, a web of affairs, rivalries and scandals comes to light. And when a second, horrific killing takes place, Barnaby realises Badger's Drift is harbouring a murderer to be reckoned with ...

"There's no need to drive as if you're auditioning for The Sweeney, Sergeant."

Grief, but that is one inappropriate cover photo! Have been after a copy of this for ages, so needs must in a crisis. Anyway, Tom's just nipped into The Black Boy for a swift half and a ploughman's so as good a time as any to reflect on the action to date.

Eighty year old Miss Emily Simpson is hunting a rare orchid when she chances upon a couple enjoying a steamy sex session in the woods. A shocked Emily withdraws from the scene, but not before she's spotted by one of the participants. That night, she suffers a fatal heart attack - or that's what the Doctor Lessiter scrawls on her death certificate. Her lifelong friend, Lucy Bellringer, prevails on Chief Detective Inspector Tom Barnaby to launch a murder investigation. He learns that, shortly before her death, Miss Simpson called the Samaritans. Tom pays a visit to their office behind Sainsbury's, and learns from strikingly beautiful young volunteer Terry Bazely that Miss Simpson put down the phone to answer the door, telling her she'd call back. She didn't.

An interview with Dr. Lessiter is hardly reassuring. Barnaby smells whiskey on his breath and, although pathologist Dr. Bullard is too much of a gent to dob in a colleague, he hints that this would not be the first time Lessiter messed up. They drive over to Brown's funeral parlour, Causton, where glib young undertaker Dennis Rainbird, makes a production of showing them the corpse. Dennis loves his job and his mum, Iris, in equal proportion. Sure enough, Bullard's autopsy reveals a lethal quantity of hemlock in Miss Simpson's bloodstream.

What of the series regulars? Joyce Barnaby's makes her first appearance on p.25, as does her culinary expertise ("One would have hoped that not even Joyce could have maltreated a salad to the point where it became inedible, but one would have been wrong.") Daughter Cully is away at Uni; For her last visit home she wore ripped jeans, "an old leather breastplate and her hair in a sequined crest" so still going through a punk phase (we never got to see that in the TV series). On the evidence of this and Death Of A Hollow Man, Sergeant Troy, who can be objectionable in the small-screen adaptation, is, on occasion, absolutely loathsome in the novels, and it's clear he doesn't think much of "Tom frigging Barnaby".

[dem]

If Mrs. Rainbird and her son - as brilliantly brought to life by Elizabeth Spriggs and Richard Cant - are decidedly unsettling in the screen adaptation, here they are the stuff of nightmares., 'Denny' in particular. The young undertaker absolutely steals The Killing Of Badger's Drift - I look forward to his next appearance even more than I do Cully Barnaby's imminent arrival in all her post-punk glory. The incest, not so subtly alluded to on screen (the Rainbirds share a far from chaste snog) is played for maximum creepiness in the novel. Ultra-camp Dennis also has great fun coming on to Sergeant Gavin Troy, who, of course, is far from appreciative - "people like that should be castrated" - and later wonders aloud to Barnaby:

"'That could have been arse bandits in the woods. You know - gay."

There could not have been more venom in the last word if the couple had been seen devouring children."

The bad seed for the entire Midsomer Murders mini-industry is contained in part two, wherein Barnaby and Troy conduct mansion house-to-house enquiries. Caroline Graham's Middle England is the domain of the corrupt, unscrupulous, adulterous, warped, and plain old mad. You would not trust any of these people with your worst enemy, far less, your sheep. Take Mrs. Barbara Lessiter, wife of the village doctor. Born the wrong side of the sheets in an Inner City hell-hole, Barbara always dreamed of the good life. High class Prostitution and a flair for shoplifting provided a foothold in society, and when the wealthy, recently widowed Trevor Lessiter blundered into her web she was not about to let him escape. Though she will never win over his dumpy, librarian daughter - Judy will never forgive her father for remarrying, and on the sly at that. First time she set eyes on her stepmother was when he whisked his trollop bride over the threshold - Barbara has her way with everything else. With her worshipful husband's wealth at her disposal, Mrs. Lessiter lounges about all day reading her society magazines, ("Harpies Bizarre and other Gorgoniea" according to Judy) until she decides it's time to take a lover. Unfortunately, their secret affair isn't as secret as she thought. Barbara Lessiter is being blackmailed to the tune of £5, 000. But by who?

Judy Lessiter is one of life's born spinsters, and not through choice. She carries a torch for handsome, enigmatic local artist Michael Lacey who once requested she sit for him. Evidently he found something about her pudgy face worthy of committing to canvas.

The Rainbirds we've met. so next it's a visit to Tye House and Henry Trace, Lord of the Manor, and his bride-to-be, Katharine Lacey (brother of Michael), "the loveliest thing Barnaby has ever seen." Trace is another widower - he lost Bella to a tragic shooting accident last autumn - and he's confined to a wheelchair, so there is always an outside chance that his gorgeous young fiancée is not strictly in this for love or even good old sexual acrobatics. David Whitely, Trace's farm manager, is estranged from both his spouse and nine-yea-old son who, last time he met him, was into Depeche Mode, BMX racing and computer games, but that was "some considerable time ago." He can barely look at Katharine without leering.

Making up the household is Phyllis Cadell, a frumpy, middle-aged chocoholic of very nervous disposition, who does for his Lordship. She has no time for Mrs Rainbird and her son, which is perfectly fair, as the Rainbird's have no time for any of their neighbours, least of all Michael Lacey, who evidently once caused Denny considerable offence.

Back to The Black Boy for another pub lunch.

[dem]

The Killings At Badgers Drift: conclusion. Spoiler Alert

"Here was ostentatious vulgarity, literally in full bloom."

It's fair to say screenwriter Anthony Horowitz toned down the creepy sex and ultra-violence of Caroline Graham's novel for the pilot episode of Midsomer Murders. Whoever slit Mrs Rainbird's throat did so with such savagery that her head is connected to her shoulders only by a flap of skin. In another departure, Dennis the undertaker survives the loss of his mother/ lover/ partner in blackmail, but the shock is too much for his mind to take and he exists the story a terminal catatonic. I thought nothing could top Denny's full on snog with his dear old mum, but that was before we inadvertently overheard an exchange of pillow talk between the Doctor and his wife, aka "Pookums and his naughty little Barbie." You too will pray to die. And, of course, the murders are necessitated when one of legion curtain twitchers threatens to expose an incestuous relationship.

The novel is so much nastier than the deceptively genteel dramatisation, and you wonder how much longer Barnaby can tolerate the presence of an embittered bigot like Troy before he too turns to homicide. Cully fans have a long, long wait before she eventually puts in an appearance, but it's worth it. Gone are the ripped and torn punk threads, nowadays Miss Barnaby favours monocled and brylcreamed pseudo-lesbian chic. Tom, the proud father, thinks of it as an improvement. "She seemed to have quietened down a bit while still looking pantomimic."

[dem]

Caroline Graham - Death Of A Hollow Man (Headline, 1990)

Blurb:
`A mystery of which Agatha Christie would have been proud... A beautifully written crime novel' - The Times.

Backstage at the Causton Amateur Dramatic Society's production of Amadeus, nerves are fraying. Apart from the fractious cast hierarchy imposed by director and would-be impresario Harold Winstanley, Salieri - alias Esslyn Carmichael - suspects his wife is having an affair with the leading man. And where better to settle scores than the stage?

Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby is only in the audience out of loyalty to his wife Joyce (wardrobe and noises off). But when someone turns Esslyn's final grand gesture into a very gruesome coup de theatre, Barnaby suddenly finds himself centre stage...

Already semi-raved about this one up-top, but couldn't resist scanning in the definitive cover. Still think the, at times downright creepy Killings At Badgers Drift is the one to begin with.

[dem]

Having thoroughly enjoyed the two Inspector Barnaby novels i've snagged to date, time to tackle one from Caroline Graham's non-Midsomer Murders catalogue. Can it possibly provide as much ghastly fun?

Caroline Graham - Murder At Madingley Grange (Headline, 1991)

Cover photograph by David Grogan

Blurb:
When Simon Hannaford is left temporarily in charge of his aunt's 20 bedroom Gothic pile he knows he must be able to make a profit from it somehow. Murder, he decides, is the only way to do it. For Madingley Grange is the perfect venue for a 1930s mystery weekend and, before long, he and his long-suffering sister have set the stage for money-spinning mayhem.

From the conservatory to the contents of the claret cellar the clues are sprinkled like pot pourri, and the hired retainers Gaunt and Bennet provide the finishing touch. But when the guests arrive it is obvious that the business of murder is bound to run off course. For neither Derek, who refuses to relinquish his deerstalker, nor Mrs Gibbs, a card-sharping grandmother, nor Gillette, the 30s fiend complete with ukulele, nor any of the other ill-assorted bunch is happy to play the victim. And when a body does appear, it hardly takes a Hercule Poirot to guess it is not a volunteer. The game of detection must begin in earnest...

Caroline Graham is the author of the Chief Inspector Barnaby novels which have been turned into a major TV drama series, Midsomer Murders, and are all available from Headline.

'The best-written crime novel I've read in ages' Susan Hill, Good Housekeeping

'An exemplary crime novel' Literary Review

'An uncommonly appealing mystery .. a real winner' Publishers Weekly

Aunt Maude is taking her annual cruise, leaving nephew and niece, Simon and Laurel 'Laurie' Hanniford, to house-sit Madingley Grange, a moated pseudo-Gothic Pile (built 1897) which visitors liken to Baskerville Hall (or, if you are Fred Gibbs, 'Castle Dracula.') Simon is, as ever, up to his neck in debt, or says he is, while Laurie could do with some serious cash if she is to wed her fiancé, Hugh Wriothesley, any time soon. Simon chips away at his sister's defences until she finally agrees to his latest money-spinning scheme. After all, it will only be for two days. Why not put the twenty bedrooms and Aunt Maud's excellent wine cellar to profitable use? Why not host a thirties-themed murder weekend!

Simon places advertisements for the event in The Times and The D**ly M**i, then sets to interviewing potential staff. Fortunately, the two applicants can provide excellent references, and Simon isn't one to double check. Gordon Gaunt and his cross-dressing accomplice Ben Bennet are butler and maid respectively. Career criminals, their enterprises have yet to meet with much success although knocking over this place should be child's play. If only Gordon can lay off the gin or, at least, not get so inebriated that he fouls everything up again.

The guests, nine in all, arrive by mini-bus. They are.

Formidable, fabulously wealthy widow Mrs. Laetitia Saville and her spoilt, very pretty daughter Rosemary, nineteen, whose secret fiancé, Martin Lewis, has also signed up with the party with strict instructions from his loved one to impress her mother. Rosemary is intent on their enjoying a midnight tryst in her room. Martin is terrified at the prospect.

Derek and Sheila Gregory. He fancies himself the second coming of Sherlock Holmes and dresses accordingly, to the point of smoking an evil-reeking tobacco and torturing a violin.

Mr. Arthur 'Gilly' Gillette travels alone save for a ukulele and a gun in his hip pocket.

Finally, seemingly recruited direct from the cast of On The Buses, the grotesque Gibbs family, Fred, his wife Violet and his mother, a psychic, constantly shovelling grub into her gaping gob, whose fat arse is forever getting wedged in doorways.

"In the bedroom of the Hogarth suite, happily innocent of the opprobrium their presence was causing to seethe in a bosom not a million miles away, the family Gibbs was getting into what Fred called their carnival clobber. Violet feeling the suggested thirties to be 'a bit drab and warmongery', they had opted for the roaring twenties. Fred had put on a brightly checked 'bounder' jacket then spoiled the period effect by adding a modern tie; a satin kipper displaying a pair of female legs ending in sequinned evening sandals kicking a champagne glass from which tumbled the letters OO LA LA!

"How do I look then?"

After a relatively painless banquet, Derek the deer-stalker throws a super-strop when he picks the short straw that casts him as the weekend's victim, but perks up considerably when wife Sheila is spooked by a hideous face leering in at her from the garden. Our wannabe Sherlock insists on interrogating the butler who is by now so soused it is a miracle the expensive crockery has survived. The consensus among the other guests is that Simon has hired a prowler for the occasion and, much to Derek's chagrin, their host says nothing to contradict them. Old Mother Gibbs stops eating for a few precious micro-seconds to read the coffee grains. Pointing ominously toward Sheila she delivers their verdict. "Beware! Death! I speak of death and murder!"

The game is afoot.

No disappointment. I breezed through the first 140 pages in one shot, and while it's not as dark and downright creepy as The Killings At Badger's Drift, Murder At Madingley Grange is delightful on its own terms. There's even talk of the old pile being haunted.

Pop culture/ lit. references include Death On The Nile, The Murders In The Rue Morgue, The Moonstone, The Woman In White, Barbara Cartland, Dennis Healey's eyebrows

[dem]

"It arose out of the floor ... by the opposite window to mine and started sliding and ... and slithering towards me. A phantom. It had claws and eyes like red hot coals and it sort of - glowed."

Martin's 2 a.m. tip-toe past Mrs. Saville's bed to reach Rosemary's door does not meet with success. When, for one horrible moment it appears that the old battleaxe has awoken, he wisely retreats to the sanctuary of his own room. Such in his haste that he collides with Gaunt who, legless drunk, has been bullied by his furious brother, Bennet the 'maid', into stealing Mrs. Saville's jewellery box. Gaunt has just been scared witless by a second hideous spectre (see above) and a treacherous suit of armour. In the ensuing tumble downstairs he sustains a suspected broken leg but refuses medical treatment. Martin, comatose, is fussed over by Lauren who has taken a shine to him. The following morning on the croquet lawn, Rosemary, already fuming at her fiancé for being such a clod, makes a play for their host, only to discover - how galling! - she faces a determined rival in Sheila Gregory. The battle of wits between "fluttering prettiness and svelte seduction" is on.

Meanwhile master detective Derek Gregory is busy dusting every ledge, floorboard and even a flowerbed for fingerprints. His diligence is rewarded when he stumbles upon a secret passage leading from Old Mrs. Gibbs' room to the conservatory. Could this be the means by which the 'ghost' or 'ghosts' move unseen about the Grange? And is their any significance in Mrs. Gibbs' bedside reading - an up to date Old Moore's Almanac and a copy of That's The Spirit! Necromancy For Beginners by Iris Wendover?

Have now reached p. 206 of 290 and not the slightest whiff of corpse, but a terrible shriek suggests that may be about to change.

[dem]

"I needed some sort of scenario for the weekend so I drove into Oxford and picked up half a dozen paperbacks. I chose 'the great dame' as you are pleased to call her simply because she was the only writer on the whodunit shelf whose name rung a bell. I'd never heard of any of the others. After all, it's hardly a genre on which any intelligent person is going to waste their time." - Simon Hanniford commits heresy before would-be super-sleuth Derek Gregory.

Ah, those last eighty pages ... Without wishing to give everything away, if you prefer your herrings screaming red and you're in the mood for some hot Carry On Up the Murder At The Vicarage/ " ... And Then There Were Still Ten" action, Murder At Madingley Grange will see you alright. And yes, there is a ghost, but .... well, you'll find out if and when you read it. Just watch yourself if ukulele fiend Arthur 'Gilly' Gillette offers to treat you to a rendition of Girl From Odaho is all.

[dem]

Will likely be a post-Christmas read, but was well pleased to land this for 50p at Sunday's market. Can it possibly top the wonderful and - when Mrs. Rainbird and her undertaker son Denny are around - creepy The Killings At Badger's Drift?

Caroline Graham - Death In Disguise (Headline, 1992)

Fred Preston

Blurb:

When the death up at the big house is announced to the village of Compton Dando it is clearly the most exciting news since some boys from the council estare burnt down the bus shelter. Few, however, are surprised, for The Golden Windhorse. as the Elizabethan manor house has recently been christened, is home to a most unlikely bunch of New Age oddballs and some would say it was only a matter of time before one of them came to a bad end. So it is a great disappointment when the Coroner deems James Cartwright's demise to have been, not murder, but simply an accident.
That, however, is not the end of the story. Only weeks after the inquest another death is reported, after May, one of the commune's most adventurous spiritual voyagers, visits Roman Britain. This time there is no doubt about it - the death is murder and Chief Inspector Barnaby is obliged to abandon some exotic culinary preparations for his daughter's engagement dinner and hurry to the scene. The case, as is immediately apparent, is far from straightforward and the suspects among the most bizarre Barnaby has ever encountered. Foremost amongst them is a stranger to the Windhorse, Guy Gamelin, a wealthy tycoon quite unafraid to use - and abuse — his considerable power. And, according to those who knew and loved the victim best, Guy Gamelin is the one with blood on his hands...

[andydecker]

Nov 30, 2017 20:24:38 GMT dem said:

Will likely be a post-Christmas read, but was well pleased to land this for 50p at Sunday's market. Can it possibly top the wonderful and - when Mrs. Rainbird and her undertaker son Denny are around - creepy The Killings At Badger's Drift?

Caroline Graham - Death In Disguise (Headline, 1992)

Fred Preston

Blurb:

As Midsomer is currrently in an endless re-run, I watched the first one recently again. Miss Rainbird and her son are unforgettable. Creepy is the word.

[dem]

Nov 30, 2017 20:38:14 GMT andydecker said:

As Midsomer is currrently in an endless re-run, I watched the first one recently again. Miss Rainbird and her son are unforgettable. Creepy is the word.

Their scenes have been very toned down for television. In the novel, CG leaves you in no doubt just how 'close' they are to one another ...

[andydecker]

Nov 30, 2017 20:44:15 GMT dem said:

Nov 30, 2017 20:38:14 GMT andydecker said:

As Midsomer is currrently in an endless re-run, I watched the first one recently again. Miss Rainbird and her son are unforgettable. Creepy is the word.

Their scenes have been very toned down for television. In the novel, CG leaves you in no doubt just how 'close' they are to one another ...

Wow  Now that you are saying it ... hm. Maybe Horowitz thought one unnatural relationship is enough for one episode.   Still, those early episodes are mostly more fun then the current affair, even after all those years. We are two seasons behind, I think (without checking), and the last ones were just lacking. I can't put the finger on it, but I was bored. Either they cut the budget and minimised the exteriors, or the creative well is just dry. Or the fired producer True-May wasn't so easily replaced.