Book 54: Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

Casino Royale was an interesting book and not really what I expected.  I'd never read a James Bond book before this one and my only impressions of the character came from the films.  In those, Bond is a suave, confident ladies man with expert knowledge of firearms and fighting in general.  In the book, the character is much more nuanced.

What's most interesting to me is that the two versions of Bond, movie and book, are not incompatible.  What makes the Bond in the novel different is the inner dialogue.  You still get the impression that he is projecting a confident, smooth exterior, but internally, he knows what could fail in his current plans or his life in general, he makes minute observations and acts on them.  He has hopes and fears and insecurities just like everyone else, he's just good at hiding it.  Much of the film Bond is still there, however.  He drinks something close to his trademark vodka martini, he drives a fast car, he shoots at double agents and he gambles large sums of the government's money.

In fact, this last part makes up the primary plot.  There is a Soviet agent who has recently embezzled and squandered a large amount of Soviet money.  In order to make up the difference he's going to try to win the missing money back in high stakes gambling.  Bond is ordered to find him and make him lose even more thereby sealing his fate.  I won't tell you how things end up, but it gets more interesting than that.

The plot was a bit simplistic and the writing was a little rough but being Fleming's first novel it's understandable.  It was a good suspense / spy novel with a very insightful look at a well-known character.  Bond in the book is not perfect, he makes plenty of mistakes and it makes him much more human.  He's a person in the novel instead of a stereotype.  I really liked this one and am definitely on board to read the next novel in the series.  7 out of 10.

Book 43: The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

Every time I come back around to the Mystery genre I think that I should probably branch out a bit and try some other authors.  But Agatha Christie is just so good!  I am trying something slightly different... instead of reading one of her Hercule Poirot books, I'm trying the first Miss Marple book.  Maybe next time I'll try a different author, but for now, I'm going to enjoy some more of this one.

247 pages is an easy 36 pages per day.


REVIEW:  Well, this is the third Agatha Christie novel that I've read and I still have not been able to guess the ending correctly.  The first two that I read were sort of gimmicky in that the endings were based more on the author's tricks than on a cunning plan.  This one, however, got me.  It was solely due to the plan by the guilty party that I was duped.

As I mentioned in the intro, this is the first Miss Marple book that I've read.  It was definitely a different style than the Poirot mysteries.  Miss Marple took almost a back-seat to the story.  Most of the book was narrated by another character, the vicar of the title's vicarage.  Occasionally, Miss Marple would show up and give some subtle clues or ideas and then disappear again for a few more chapters.  It's almost a stretch to even call it a "Miss Marple mystery" when she is hardly in the book at all.  She does show up at the end to wrap up the case, though, and since this is the first appearance of the character, I'm giving it a bit of leeway.

The book was very fun, though, and I raced through it, excited by the thrill of the case.  Christie writes some very memorable characters and very clever plots.  One of these days I'll actually figure out the mystery before the end but, until then, I look forward to being outsmarted a few more times by Ms. Christie.

8 out of 10.

Book 32: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

I'm cheating on my little project here as the Russian book is giving me a harder time than expected.  I should have finished by now but am only about 160 pages in.  I'm going on a weekend vacation and don't really feel like working through Pasternak, so I'm taking a little break and reading a murder mystery.  It's pretty short at 256 pages and I'll probably try to finish it by the end of the long weekend so about 85 pages per day. 

REVIEW:  This is the second Agatha Christie mystery that I’ve read and I was impressed with this one as well.  I have this little game that I like to play with mystery novels where I write down a list of suspects and, every quarter of the book or so, I try to guess who is the guilty party.  I find that my choice generally changes as more evidence is uncovered.  I generally take it as a sign of a good mystery if the crime is solvable at the end of the book without additional “clues” being introduced at the last minute.  Christie is really good at laying out all of the information but still surprising you at the end.  Twice now, I’ve played my little game and didn’t even come close to guessing the guilty party.

This book wasn’t quite as good as the previous one I read as I felt the ending was a little bit unfair but that may just be sour grapes because she got me again.  I do really like the character of Hercule Poirot and I’m wondering if I would like her other main character, Miss Marple, as much.  Maybe I’ll explore that next.

Overall, it was a great little mystery and another interesting read.  I suppose there’s a reason that Agatha Christie has sold over 2 billion books.  It wasn’t quite as good as The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, however as the ending felt a little contrived and the mystery was laid out a bit too clinically. 

7 out of 10.

Book 23: Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

My schedule was slipping for a couple weeks, but we’re back on now.  Next up is Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco.  It’s a bit of a mystery/conspiracy theory novel from what I understand, as well as historical fiction.  I really enjoyed The Name of the Rose when I read it a number of years ago, but wasn’t as impressed with some of Eco’s more recent novels.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Eco’s writing and all of his books that I’ve read have been good, but I’m hoping that this is a great one.

623 pages means 89 pages per day.

REVIEW:  This is the third Templar conspiracy book that I've read.  The first was Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln which was very fun and very interesting.  The second one was Dan Brown's  The Da Vinci Code which was a blatant rip-off of Holy Blood, Holy Grail and basically just dramatized the book.  This one takes on the same subject material, basically, but adds a new twist.  

Eco is a phenomenal writer, his prose is very dense and he tends to incorporate tons and tons of historical material into his writing.  There are two basic types of chapters in the book.  One part tells the story of the protagonists and those are quick and interesting.  There is lots of drama and things happen quickly.  The second type is building the historical conspiracy of the Templars and, because it's a world-encompassing conspiracy, it tends to get very, very arcane.  I wouldn't say that you could just skim through the historical material either, because he tends to build on it from chapter to chapter and he refers back to different groups constantly.  

The other thing about this book is that he uses a lot of foreign languages.  The main characters are obviously well versed in Latin and French at the least and a smattering of other languages when necessary.  With my linguistic background it wasn't much of a problem, but if you do not know at least Latin and French you may need a dictionary, or Google Translate.  I don't think that there was anything critical that wasn't in English, but you might miss some of the flavor.

All in all, I found this to be a very enjoyable read.  I still prefer Eco's The Name of the Rose but this is probably my second favorite of his novels.  It did get a little arcane with all the occult knowledge that he included, but that knowledge is critical to the plot and really is the point of the book so it's something you have to wade through to really appreciate whole product Eco presents at the end.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Book 10: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

I'm worn out from the last couple books, so I want something quick and easy this time.  At about 300 pages, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd should allow me to take my time. Besides, I've never read anything by Ms. Christie and, I assume, she must be famous for a good reason, right?  This one came up on a lot of lists as the best of her works, so I thought I'd give it a try.

REVIEW:  I expected this one to be pretty good based solely on the reputation of the author, but it exceeded my expectations by far.  The writing was very entertaining and had me hooked from the first chapter.  It was, pretty much, exactly what I want from a mystery novel.  The clues were all presented before the reveal, allowing you to make guesses as to "who dunnit" throughout.  In fact, it was complicated enough that I revised my own personal list of suspects at least 3 times before the end.  And I still got it wrong.  Mostly this is due to the great twist at the end.  I didn't see it coming at all.  I'm not going to spoil it, of course, but it got me good.

9/10 - one of the best of the genre and definitely one of my new favorite books.