Title: The Wench is Dead
Author: Colin Dexter
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 244
Rating: 8/10
Colin Dexter – The Wench is Dead
I’m probably a little predisposed towards Colin Dexter, because I’ve read all of the Sherlock Holmes books and most of Agatha Christie’s back catalogue, and so this is the natural next step. The Wench is Dead is a little different to most of the other books, in that Morse is an invalid throughout. He got hospitalised for being a middle-aged pisshead.
Anyway, the actual mystery involved here begins to develop when Morse begins to read one of his fellow patients’ write-up of a century-old murder case. It turns out, he has a few doubts about whether the official version of events, which led to the execution of several men, was ever the case at all.
And so, in between reading ‘blue‘ novels when he thinks no-one is looking and trying to recover from his illness, Morse’s mind begins to unravel the problem like one of the crossword puzzles that he’s fond of.
This is one of the quickest Morse novels to read, and it was also a gripping story, and so it’s a pretty good introduction to his work. That said, I’m yet to read most of the rest of the rest of Dexter’s work, and I’m willing to bet that there’ll be a better introduction to his stuff in there somewhere. Bear with me while I look into that, for you.
Colin Dexter
Tony Hawks – A Piano in the Pyrenees | Review
Title: A Piano in the Pyrenees
Author: Tony Hawks
Type: Non-Fiction
Page Count: 312
Rating: 4/5
This non-fiction book tells the story of what happened when a middle-aged British comedian called Tony Hawks decided to buy a house in France, almost on a whim. He also decided to take his piano over there so that he could finally learn to play the thing.
It was a fun little book, and overall I found it to be a pleasure to work my way through it. My only real complaint would be that the pacing was a little off, in that it felt as though the whole book covered a period of just a couple of months or so.
Other than that though, there were some great little insights into French culture here, as well as a few smatterings of French dialogue that were enjoyable for me as someone who’s slowly but surely trying to learn the language. There were also some great little examples of culture shock or of misunderstandings, particularly when Hawks was trying to navigate the complicated French legal landscape to purchase properties and to build swimming pools, despite being utterly useless at assembling basic flat packs.
I’ve read a couple of Hawks’ other books at this point, and tonality and sense of humour wise, it’s pretty similar to those. That means that if you enjoyed Round Ireland with a Fridge, for example, then you’re probably going to enjoy this one too. Sure, his sense of humour might not be quite right for everyone, but Hawks has always made me laugh and he did so here, too.
There were occasional borderline sexist comments in it here and there, but then I suppose that gave it a certain sense of realness. He was a single bloke surrounded by Frenchwomen, after all. But overall, yeah.
Learn more about A Piano in the Pyrenees.