Reading the Detectives discussion

Welcome to our July/August 22 buddy read of The Secret Vanguard the fifth book in the Inspector Appleby series, first published in 1940.

Successful minor poet, Philip Ploss, lives a peaceful existence in ideal surroundings, until his life is upset when he hears verses erroneously quoted as his own. Soon afterwards, he is found dead in the library with a copy of Dante's Purgatory open before him.

On an ordinary train journey to Scotland, Sheila Grant becomes embroiled in a plot that is anything but: a chemist has gone missing, an artist has been kidnapped, and a poet has been murdered.

As Sheila begins to understand the enormity of the situation, she realizes her life is in grave danger and must flee across the Scottish Highlands in search of assistance and a man named Appleby.

In London, Appleby is trying to piece together a kidnapping, a death, and a disappearance as the world wavers on the brink of another war. He has no idea he is Sheila’s best hope of survival.

When the clock is ticking and no one is quite who they claim to be… will Appleby find Sheila before it’s too late?

Please feel free to post spoilers in this thread.

I won't join in this time because I read it again fairly recently (and enjoyed it).

My spoiler-free review is here if interested:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The overall pot was quite good but it did seem very implausible to me. A women told to amble around in a field wearing a light coloured raincoat, so she would be taken as a sheep, was ridiculous! However the stamina of this woman who had been knocked out, deprived of sleep and not eaten, was to be envied. Another amazing character has to be Macintosh, from Scotland Yard with his feats of activity. The author's references to Swinburne, I'm afraid meant nothing to me.

Algernon Charles Swinburne was a Victorian poet who was considered quite scandalous in his day. Wikipedia sums it up nicely: he “wrote about many taboo topics, such as lesbianism, cannibalism, sado-masochism, and anti-theism.” He was an alcoholic who liked to be flogged. Later in life after his health broke down, he forswore decadence and became boringly respectable (but less of a poet).

I definitely felt I had to put my sense of reality on hold - the way that Sheila lands from one danger into another, with one person after another turning out to be fake, almost felt like an Indiana Jones type film! I know it has been compared with The 39 Steps, but it is a long time since I've read that.

Thanks for the details about Swinburne, Abigail - I believe he was very highly thought of despite the decadence, or maybe after letting go of it!

Interesting how many Golden Age detective mysteries have a lot of poetry woven in - of course, we have seen this with Nicholas Blake who was really poet laureate Cecil Day Lewis, while Wimsey and Harriet are always quoting poems too and so do Fen and the other characters in the Edmund Crispin books!

I've just looked up the Georgian poets as Philip Ploss is said to be one of this group - I've found this long article about them but haven't read it all as yet:
https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.109...

Have just been reading an eighteenth-century novel in which the dialogue is packed with poetic and other literary allusions. I have the impression it was a standard part of a genteel British education to memorize large swatches of poetry, at least till relatively recently.

We see this with Wimsey, and to some extent in the Dalgleish books - I don't know if it's just a detective thing, though!

Having just finished the Bobby Owen book - Murder Abroad - I noticed that here too we have a blind man, leading people through the forest. I did like the Moray Loon, though.

Having just finished the Bobby Owen book - Murder Abroad -I noticed that here too we have a blind man, leading people through the forest. I did like the Moray Loon, though...."

Oh, that's interesting about the blind man leading people in both, Rosina - I hadn't made the connection. I also liked the Moray Loon and thought there were a few good characters in this - loved the academic archaeologist and the opening sequence in his library.

On the poetry, I've just read a blog post which includes a few contemporary reviews - the last review here discusses this element and makes a connection with crosswords.
https://grandestgame.wordpress.com/li...

Abigail wrote: "Have just been reading an eighteenth-century novel in which the dialogue is packed with poetic and other literary allusions. I have the impression it was a standard part of a genteel British education to memorize large swatches of poetry, at least till relatively recently..."

I think this applied at all UK schools until relatively recently, as you say - I certainly had to learn chunks of Shakespeare off by heart to quote in my English O-level and A-level exams. I don't think pupils still have to do this but I may be wrong!

I don't think we had to learn stuff by heart, but I enjoyed doing it, from an early age. I found it useful to have committed poems to memory when doing O-Level English lit, and I still remember some more or less accurately, nearly 60 years later. Even if I can't remember the whole poem, lines surface now and then.

It didn't help me analyse the poems for exams, but at least I could throw chunks of quotation in, when inspiration ran dry.

I wasn't all that keen on the poetry we did to O-Level, and I don't think we had to learn much of it by heart. (This was in the early 70s.) I became much keener on poetry in the 6th-form (when I did science A Levels) partly because I didn't have to study it so it wasn't a chore, and probably more importantly, because I had a girlfriend who took me to poetry readings by people like Roger McGough, Brian Patten and so on. I only went to start with because I was seriously in love and wanted to spend the time with her and find out about what she liked, but I found I really liked the poetry, too.

That began an interest in poetry, and a love of a good deal of it, which has lasted. Like you, I have a number of poems by heart, all of which I have learned since giving up studying English in any formal way. They are wonderful, faithful companions.

I definitely didn't have to learn any poetry by heart at either school or uni, and think rote learning has the potential to make exams a test of memory, not of the ability to analyse literature.

Generally now, students at uni are set 'take home exams' i.e. an assessed essay so they have access to all the primary and secondary sources.

That said, both chunks of poetry and stray lines stay with me.

When my mother was at school she learnt lots of Kipling's poems, and could recite them. I loved his River's Tale so she taught me that. Maybe that was, as being a Londoner, I knew the Thames. I can still recite that, but the poetry from school has definitely left me. I'm coming around to the Homer Simpson idea, where if you learn something new, something old gets pushed out. (LOL)

Jill wrote: "I'm coming around to the Homer Simpson idea, where if you learn something new, something old gets pushed out. (LOL)..."
Haha, I didn't know Homer Simpson thought that, but it seems to happen to me with passwords etc!

I do still remember some chunks of poetry learned at school, but often find I've got the wordings slightly wrong if I look them up...

Does anyone think there will be a romance for Sheila and Dick beyond the end of the book? I had wondered if they would end up together, as he seems such an attractive personality and she keeps thinking of him all through the novel, but there's nothing very definite and the last line of the book is her saying goodbye as he opens the train door. I wasn't 100% sure if she is saying goodbye to him though!

I wondered if Innes left it like this because of the war-time setting, and all the couples who were having to part.

Innes tends to leave romance at the embryonic stage, rather than working towards a resolution. The young couples (if couples they are) in other books seem to be attracted, but whether they actually follow up on that after the close of the book we rarely know. As far as I'm aware (and I've read most of them) we never hear again about Appleby's sisters, both of whom seem to have potential romances in the course of the books in which they appear.

That's interesting to know about the young couples - thanks, Rosina.

Very interesting, Rosina—I read these so long ago and if I ever noticed that tendency, it didn’t stick. Now I’ll be on the lookout for all those other potential lives stirring beneath the surface!

Finally finished and like others, I enjoyed it a lot despite the improbability. My review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

Great review, Abigail, and glad you enjoyed it so much. I thought I'd already posted to say this, but apparently not!

Thanks, Judy!

A non-Appleby book, in a similar style but set at the end of the Second World War is . It has many of the same ingredients - poetry, a resourceful young woman, and a middle-aged academic, together with a Scottish highland and island hideout - but is even more improbable. But fun.

I quite enjoyed the book esp. as it was very different from the others in the series so far. This book made me feel exactly like how I felt when reading The Secret Adversary the young couple, people not being who they say they are, the running around, spies, etc.

I like the blind man as a character and really loved Sheila Grant. We rarely get such strong women (the only others that come to mind are Christie's characters but I may be wrong as I'm not as well read as others in this group).

As for poetry, in school (India), we read Robert Frost, William Wordsworth, John Keats, T.S. Eliot, William Blake and some Shelley but no Shakespeare or others that are quoted in most Golden age mysteries.

Shaina, oh yes, it is like The Secret Adversary and also a bit like some of the early Albert Campion thrillers by Margery Allingham, where I often get a bit lost!