The Accident on the A35 by Graeme Macrae Burnet

A few months ago, I chanced upon an interview of one of the greatest crime fiction writers, late P D James. Till then, I had not read a single book of hers.


But to my surprise, her interview made me look at crime fiction with a different perspective and it was much of a consolation for an ardent crime lover like me to know that unlike common perception where the so called ‘ serious readers’ brush crime noir aside as mere pulp fiction  ( I believe this is a trend in India and thankfully, it is slowly changing) , the genre really has a long back history and depth. Besides, we  have bequeathed rich classic crime literature that many are not aware of.

It made me delve into P D James’ celebrated book - “ An Unsuitable Job for a Woman”. Though I had been reading mysteries for quite a while, the book felt so different and new. It seemed as if I was seriously getting one with the characters in it. And for the first time, I learnt that the characters in the crime noir could have emotions . That was my first stint with the real crime noir.

Strangely,  I felt the same tempo when I was reading Graeme Macrae Burnet’s The Accident on the A35 ’ too.

It all began when an acclaimed solicitor Bertrand Barthelem’s car meets with an accident and owing to this, Police Chief Georges Gorski's daily routine is disrupted. Considering the social standing of the solicitor,
 Gorski believes that he himself should go and break the news to his family. But what perplexes him is that even after disclosing such a news, the solicitor’s wife Lucette and son Raymond are  hardly moved by the solicitor’s death.


And also the fact that Lucette seems to be many years younger than the solicitor makes the police chief stray a bit, who has already separated from his wife.

Partly to please Lucette, he starts an unofficial investigation when she says that her husband had no reasons to be on the A35 as he had the habit of ‘supping’ with his colleagues that particular day, every week. In no time, Gorski finds out that the solicitor had used his ‘ routine supper’ as a cover up to hide something from his wife. What was it? His further investigation reveals that the solicitor had withdrawn a huge amount of money on that day when he was killed.

Besides, he also thinks the solicitor has something to do with the murder of a woman at Strasbourg which happened the same day he got killed in the accident.

On the other hand, Solicitor's young son Raymond also begins a parallel investigation when he gets a paper neatly tucked
in a table of his father's study that bore the address of some woman.

The narration has the pace of a serious classic crime literature. I also felt a strong resemblance between James’ detective Cordelia Gray and Gorski especially when it comes to their vulnerability. He has delved deeply into the characters of Gorski and Raymond. To talk more about the latter, his troubled psyche has been analysed meticulously and Raymond evolves through the story.

Will it be far-fetched if I say Raymond resembles ‘Mersaul’t from Albert Camu’s ‘ The Stranger’- You decide.

The writing is like honey dripping from the comb. But what puzzles me is that though it is called a crime fiction, it does not actually fit the description.
The real objective of crime noir is the restoration of order. Here, though some situations are straightened out, there are some more mess to be cleaned up.
 The author leaves his readers midway  as ‘ the Murder on the A35 has a open ending. I am perfectly fine if there’s a sequel.

So, will there be a sequel ?

PS : This is a review copy, I received from Bee books, Kolkata

by Shalet Jimmy

Cards on the Table by AGATHA CHRISTIE

Book:  Cards On The Table
Author: Agatha Christie
Publication Date: 1936


Mr Shaitana was a  person of dubious character. He was attending a snuff box exhibition when he ran into our own detective Hercule Poirot. Shaitana was quick enough to invite him for dinner and lured him to meet some strange invitees.


There was something peculiar about that invitation. A collector of many strange things, Shaitana also nurtured a macabre habit. Some of the invitees to the dinner invitation were none other than people who have gotten away easily after committing murders. He had a strange talent of extracting hidden secrets from people and he used his talent arduously to find such people and bring them together to a dinner table at his house.


Finally, the fateful day had come. After the dinner, the guests decided to play bridge and divided themselves into two groups.

When the first group consisted of Dr Roberts, Major Despard, Mrs Lorrimer and Miss Anne Meredith, the second group consisted of Hercule Poirot, Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard, detective fiction writer Mrs Adriane Oliver and Colonel Race, a retired secret service operative.

Both of the groups sat in two different rooms while Shaitana, the host did not take part in the game but sat in the first room by the fire, observing the players.

When they approached their host to bid good bye, after the bridge, to their utter shock, they found him murdered in his chair. He was stabbed in the neck with a stiletto.

In no time, Superintendent Battle took charge of the situation. It was then, the players in the second room realised that Shaitana had carefully picked his guests. While the guests in the second room were associated with investigation and authority, his choice of guests in the first room was a hint from Shaitana that they were possibly murderers who had gotten away after committing it. Shaitana had suggested the same thing to Hercule Poirot when they met at the snuff box exhibition.

Never in the wildest of his dreams, he might have thought that by inviting such people he was inviting his own death.

According to Christie, this was Hercule Poirot's favourite case though Hastings, his companion found it dull. For a change, she had come up with three other sleuths as well along with Poirot to nab the culprit from among the four possible murderers. It's not mostly the clues which had helped the four detectives in their sleuthing but pure psychology.

Though I understood the basic plot, the reading became a bit strainful when Poirot decided to analyse the suspects from their bridge scores. Because I don't know how to play bridge. Besides, there were many twists and turns.

Like most of her novels, Agatha Christie in this novel too was adamant that the reader shouldn't find out the culprit before she discloses it to them. Even though she had offered a clue in the foreword of the novel that there were four possible murderers, I failed miserably in detecting the real one. But that's the fun of it and that makes her the " Queen of Crime ".

To talk about the character Mrs Adriane Oliver, the 'whodunnit' mystery writer, she was full of energy and fun and Agatha Christie did leave no stones unturned to poke her.

Long and short, in her 25th novel, her plotting abilities were at its zenith.

- by Shalet Jimmy

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P D JAMES

Book: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
Author : P D James
Publication Date : 1972

Cordelia Gray was just 22 when she had to take up the responsibility of a detective agency run by her partner, Bernie. He killed himself as he was ailing from cancer. The detective agency was not a huge success. It was then a famous scientist Mr Ronald Callender approached her to solve a case for him.

His son, Mark Callendar who was a dropout from Cambridge committed suicide. He wanted to know why he did so. After opting out of Cambridge, he had taken up a job as a gardener in the house of Markhlands. He was living in a small cottage in their compound. It was there he hanged himself.

When the police found his body, he was wearing jeans and had a smear of lipstick on his lips. Cordelia decided to shift to this cottage so that she could investigate the surroundings including the Cambridge. From Miss Markhland, she came to know that a girl had visited him before his death. Inside the cottage, she found freshly prepared stew and a coffee pot with coffee, definitely not the signs that indicated that he was contemplating suicide. It dawned upon her that it was not a suicide but murder.

Let me tell you, in the beginning, this is not a typical murder mystery. It can mar the fresh perspective, this particular one could offer. I did the same and it was when I reached the middle of the story  I realized that it had much more to it. It’s a Cordelia Grey mystery though Adam Dalgliesh would make his entry in the end.

What I liked about the book was the sheer sincerity of the character. Cordelia was not an expert like Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple and she knew that she was vulnerable and lacked experience. But that did not deter her from doing her bit.
Besides, it was also her story of survival. It was clearly said in the title of the book ‘ An unsuitable job for a woman’. Though many pointed out to her that the job was unsuitable, she was adamant about taking it up.

She did not have the experience but she was shrewd and knew how to confront a person during an investigation. Since his boss was dead, there was nobody she could rely upon with her instincts and intuitions. Still, she went ahead and did what she had to do.

This is my first P D James book. I am happy to know that this book comes first in the list of her works which one shouldn’t miss reading if one is a fervent murder mystery fan. I have watched many of P D James’ interviews and I would proudly call my teacher for she had taken me to a different level of the genre called the mystery.

I am sure that I will read this book again. Her writing was like honey dripping from the comb.

By Shalet Jimmy

Happy Birthday Baroness Baroness James of Holland Park ( P D JAMES )

Happy Birthday

I am an ardent fan of crime noir, religiously reading Agatha Christie and Mary Higgins Clark. A few months ago, I stumbled upon an interview of P D James alias Phyllis Dorothy James.
 It just made me look at crime fiction from a different angle and soon she was added to my aforementioned list of favourite authors. I am currently reading her ' An unsuitable job for a woman' and have got a copy of ' Death comes to Pemberley'. Yesterday, watched the BBC adaptation of her novel ' Death in the holy orders'

A big Jane Austen fan, she passed away at the age of 94 in 2014.

Two links from Paris Review and Telegraph to know more about her and her works:-

Paris Review - Interview P D James
PD James' 5 novels you should read ( Telegraph)