Patna Blues - A Breath of Fresh Air in Troubled Times

In dramas from Korea and Japan, older woman-younger man love is a popular theme. On Indian screens or Hollywood, the man has to be a little elder than the woman. Not by too much. Or he becomes villain. Who sets those barriers? Who shall love whom is an issue that plagues us. The issue is mostly social but powerfully legal at times. And most people cannot let go of thinking this is good and that is bad.  

Long Vacation

Much that has evolved faster elsewhere needs changing in Indian mindsets. More liberal laws are a hallmark of progressive civilisations. Laws that evolve to suit reality rather than archaic moralities. Abdullah Khan brings us an Indian story that dares to challenge the status quo in more than just the question of age and love.

 Dream says the first chapter and we enter the world of young Arif:

Arif shivered when a gust of wind hit him. I should have worn a jacket, he thought as he stopped his bicycle in front of a two-storeyed yellow building. He had just returned home from college. Parking his bicycle in the stairwell of the building, he pulled a notebook from its carrier and climbed up a flight of stairs. The banister of the staircase was broken in places and cobwebs hung from the ceiling.

We are transported into an India, both authentic and larger than life.  A small town youth slogs and crams for a popular Indian exam, one which holds symbolical keys to the 'kingdom' - the right to administer to the diverse needs of this unwieldy demography and geography. 

Interspersed with forbidden romance and politico-religious chaos, the novel croons the reader through all kinds of nightmare scenarios with compassion. 

Patna Blues Sings Rights, Riots, and Rites

Riots dot India's history with religious regularity. Most Indians experience one or know someone who has. Once the riots are over, we bury the issue of their being endemic. And, we have, in our vast cultural arsenal, a host of ways to never look a thing directly in the eye. Patna Blues steps delicately and warily over the debris of actual and fictional riots with a rare maturity and subtle humour that does the author much credit. The book has passages where a near riot situation simmers, evoking the ambiance without hurling brick-like judgement.  

Communal riots - Ahmedabad, February / March 2002
The picture reminds me of my only view of a riot - the one in Delhi in 1984.

Around the world, riot rate has been an uneasy marker of democracy. However, we would all rather not be present at a riot. Many countries become desirable to visit or reside in where riots are rare or only seen as news from distant lands. To create a riot free environment is surely the work of good administration. In India, the IAS exam is one way to such responsibility.

Hordes of young Indians embark on this pursuit in a manner not unlike that of students in the ancient Chinese exam system. It's a kind of do or die. Years of life are wasted in unsuccessful attempts. And Patna Blues is the ballad of one such attempt.

While riots across the world erupt for a variety of reasons, in India, they are frequently due to religion. And, while much of the rest of the world has chosen to try and underplay the power of religion over day to day life, we have emerged increasingly pious and surly as a race, ever ready to riot. Here, too, Khan has used a tender touch, just enough to bring us the beauty of that cultural phenomenon: religion. And, let's not forget that, in India, even academics are undertaken as rites! With much religious 'chanting' of study material!

In urban India, it was, to some extent, quite popular to be 'secular' or even outright agnostic. However, that has rapidly changed over the past few years. In rural India, religious rites rule rigidly. The state of Bihar does not boast high literacy rates. So, one can imagine the average Bihari to be much more pious than, say, a person from Kerala, where literacy has boomed. Again, today, I'm not so sure about that. Today, in India, it pays to be pious. While religious ritualism is fascinating as cultural phenomena, we observe less crime in regions where religion is low key. Consider Japan or some of the Scandinavian lands.

In Patna Blues, there are vivid and memorable encounters with dreaded bandits. The sad truth is that this piece of fiction reflects what is daily life in much of India. Even more so today than ever before.

A historical account of life in small town India, the novel showcases the aspirations and tribulations of an average Indian small town male with gentleness and sweet candour.

Patna Blues is a must read, across the globe, for insights into the Indian psyche. Though written from a Muslim's perspective, it could just as easily be the tale of a Hindu or Christian family in India. Veiled under a tale of unrequited and forbidden love, the story sings the blues that afflict India today and, while no fingers are pointed, the message is clear: rather than complain, , it is time the average Indian studies national policies as assiduously as an IAS officer. Riots and gangsterism will become myths from the past when rights and not riots guide us.

In the meanwhile, read Patna Blues today. Abdullah Khan is a pioneering voice in Indian writing in English. A rare ease and flow make the book a page turner.

The Gabriel Hounds - Mary Stewart's Damascus, now much dog-eared?

Gabriel Hounds, according to some legends in the UK, were human headed dogs. If they fly over a home, it is an omen of death or bad luck. There are many colourful stories around these airborne canines. In Mary Stewart's The Gabriel Hounds, a character says:

I think myself that the idea must have come from the wild geese - have you heard them? They sound like a pack of hounds in full cry overhead, and the old name for them used to be 'gabble ratchet'. I've sometimes wondered if the'Gabriel' doesn't come from 'gabble', because after all Gabriel wasn't the angel of death...

And, from those legends, we leap to a more personal myth in the story. Young Christie Mansel is rich and twenty-two. She has come to Lebanon to look after an aunt. Aunt Harriet is an eccentric lady who lives in a rundown palace called Dar Ibrahim.

Now, in that region, there are some well known hunting dogs such as the Saluki. And Lady Harriet loved going hunting with them. 

Saluki dog, CC BY-SA 4.0 

But it is said that, if Gabriel Hounds run around and howl in Dar Ibrahim, there will be death. The palace is full of secret passages and strange servants - an excellent setting for murder and mystery.

Bayan Almaarawi - Maktab Anbar - Old Damascus

The deep blue oblong of sky above the open court was pricking already with brilliant stars. No ugly diffusion of city light spoiled the deep velvet of that sky; even hanging as it was above the glittering and crowded richness of the Damascus oasis, it spoke of the desert and the vast empty silence beyond the last palm tree...

The story takes place in the nineteen-sixties. Christy Mansel, touring Syria and Lebanon, bumps into Charles, her cousin. Since they are in Damascus, why not meet Great-Aunt Harriet who lives near Beirut. She is over eighty and lives in a decrepit palace by river Adonis. She dresses like the famous Lady Hester Stanhope.

Lady Hester Stanhope on horseback, via Wikimedia Commons

Harriet does not meet anyone other than her servants and a young Englishman. Christy feels unwelcome but spends a night there. She senses something is wrong and, with Charles, decides to investigate.

The novel is rich with twists and turns as well as poetic descriptions of the beauty of the region. With an action-packed ending, The Gabriel Hounds will make nice reading this autumn, taking the reader down the highways of the history of a troubled but once very beautiful region. 

Alas, like the ill-omened flying Gabriel Hounds, planes from some countries have brought death and devastation to the place, once known as the Paris of the Middle East.

Sneak a preview:

The chapters of Mary Stewart's The Gabriel Hounds open with quotes from The Koran and from Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat. 

Given the times, we have to excuse a certain degree of racism in the novel where Arabic is said to sound like an angry cat spitting. However, it will be a pity if we turn away from such historical phenomena. We not only deprive ourselves of a sense of history but also become no less prejudiced. 

This post concludes the Mary Stewart journey. The next one tackles a contemporary novel from India where forbidden love flowers in a region rich with gangsters.

Airs Above the Ground - Circus, Smuggling and Stallions

Some stallions are specially groomed to perform stylized jumps called 'airs above the ground'. Airs Above the Ground, yet another romantic thriller from Mary Stewart, takes the reader galloping airily through adventures in Austria, home of a famous training school for Lipizzaner stallions.

A Lipizzaner Stallion performing the levade - Sean

Vanessa March, having tea with a school friend of her mother's, hears some distressing news. Her husband, whom she thought was in Stockholm, appears to be in Austria! As luck will have it, her tea companion asks if she would accompany her teenage son to Austria, assuming Vanessa is going there to join her husband.

Harrods of London cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Ann Harrison - geograph.org.uk/p/2988885

And, thus, she's plunged into an adventure of a lifetime. Lewis, supposed to be in Sweden, appears in a documentary about a fire in a circus in Austria!

All at once there it was. ‘Circus Fire in Austrian Village . . . Sunday night . . . Province of Styria . . . An elephant loose in the village street . . .’ And the pictures. Not of the fire itself, but of the black and smoking aftermath in the grey of early morning, with police, and grey-faced men in thick overcoats huddled round whatever had been pulled from the wreck. There was the circus encampment in its field, the caravans, mostly streamlined and modern, the big top in the background..

A village in Styria - Bernd Thaller 

When Vanessa and the teenager, Tim, reach Vienna, they find out that that Tim's real purpose for the journey is to work in the famous Spanish Riding School. Vanessa, in turn, reveals the truth behind her reason to be there. They hire a car and set off for Graz. Near Graz there is a Lipizzaner stud farm. Also, Vanessa thinks the circus she saw in the documentary was there.

Castle mountain Graz - Ralf Roletschek - Wikimedia Commons

Vanessa and the boy find themselves mixed up with drug runners and missing horses. The novel is packed with action scenes, car chases and chases through old castles.

Next moment we in our turn were sweeping over the crest of the hill, and there in front of us, as Lewis had said, was the sprawled darkness of the wood, an avalanche of thick trees spilled down from the mountainside above, and flooding the valley right to the river bank. Beyond this, clear in the moonlight, shone a cluster of white painted houses, and the spire of a village church with its glinting weathercock. Only a glimpse we had of it, and then the car dropped quietly down the hill with a rush like that of the castle lift, and we were whispering through the dark tunnel of the pines. The road slashed through the forest as straight as a footrule, and at the far end of the wooded tunnel we could see yellow points of light which must be the lamps in the village street.

Preview Airs Above the Ground below:

Austria is not as cheap to visit as Greece but it is a place rich in culture. Apparently, it is the next big romantic destination for Indian tourists. 

In the meanwhile, the best thing to do is to read Airs Above the Ground! With the next post we conclude our tours with Mary Stewart novels, visiting Damascus with The Gabriel Hounds.

This Rough Magic - A Tempestuous Adventure in Corfu!

Corfu, in Greece - Shakespeare's supposed setting for The Tempest - is a dream come true for any actor to visit. Naturally, young actress, Lucy Waring, is delighted when her sister invites her to the island. Especially since she is out of employment.

The Tempest - oil painting - William Hogarth - Public domain

British author, Mary Stewart's romantic thriller, This Rough Magic, uses quotes from Shakespeare's play. In fact the title is from Act 5, Scene 1 of The Tempest where Prospero decides to give up magic and return to his former life as Duke of Milan.

Some scholars think that it was Corfu that Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote the drama.

Corfu 

And it is in Corfu that Lucy’s sister, Phyllida Forli, owns three houses, all near each other, in a bay of their own. Phyllida is married to Leonardo Forli, a rich Italian banker. Forli and family live in Villa Forli. And rent out Villa Rotha and the Castello dei Fiori. 

Since Leonardo travels a lot, they asked Lucy over as Phyllida is pregnant. It is their third child, whom Phyllida has decided to name Prospero, after the old duke in the Tempest.

At the villa there is also a maid, Maria, a local peasant with a daughter called Miranda. Shakespeare's Miranda was duke Prospero's daughter and only child. She grew up isolated on the island where they have been abandoned. Maria's daughter, Miranda, however, like her mother, works for the Forlis.

Miranda - The Tempest. John William Waterhouse - Oil Painting Public Domain

Miranda's father has vanished into nearby communist Albania. Her twin, Spiro, is also employed by the Forlis. He is named after a Corfu saint, St Spiridon.

Saint Spyridon Icon, Public Domain

Spiro works at Villa Rotha which has been rented by Godfrey Manning, a photographer. Godfrey Manning is rich and loves fishing and traveling. He even has his own boat-house. Godfrey takes photos of Spiro swimming with a dolphin.

Lucy feels she's in paradise, especially when she gets to swim with a dolphin.

Dolphin, Greece - Harrygouvas

However, someone tries to shoot the dolphin and almost hits Lucy. Lucy thinks it must be a man she sees near the Castello dei Fiori. The man is rude to her, assuming that she is a trespasser. The Castello is another Forli mansion.

Corfu: the Achilleion - Marc Ryckaert, Wikimedia Commons

And the man is Maxwell Gale. Max is trying to protect his father's privacy. His father was a famous actor, Sir Julian Gale. Four years back, Gale's wife and daughter died in an accident. Since then, the actor likes to be by himself. Even so, Lucy's sister finds father and son odd.

Lucy knows that, since two years, the actor has vanished from the drama circles in England. She had seen him act as Prospero in an enactment of The Tempest. Son Max composes music and is working on some for a film based on The Tempest.

Actor Gale is also godfather to Miranda and Spiro, and gave the teenagers their names.

Lucy returns home to find that her sister very upset because Godfrey says that Spiro fell overboard during a night time photography trip.

The next day, Lucy is wandering around the village when she meets Miranda. The girl is with a young man with whom she is having an affair. He is another Forli family employee: Adoni.

Adonis - Painting by Benjamin West [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

In a country where beauty among the young is a commonplace, he was still striking. He had the fine Byzantine features, with the clear skin and huge, long-lashed eyes that one sees staring down from the walls of every church in Greece; ... This youth had, indeed, the air of one who had faced the sinful world for some years now, but had obviously liked it enormously, and had cheerfully sampled a good deal of what it had to offer. .. And not, I judged, a day over nineteen.

Adoni works for the Gales. And it is to their mansion that Lucy is led, one day, by a cute cat:

Somewhere to one side was a thicket of purple judas-trees, and apple-blossom glinting with the wings of working bees. Arum lilies grew in a damp corner, and some other lily with petals like gold parchment, transparent in the light. And everywhere, roses. ...  I had forgotten roses could smell like that.

There she meets Sir Julian Gale. The cat is his and it is called Nitwit. A cat is almost always present in a Mary Stewart novel.

On another day, Lucy goes to the beach with her sister and finds a body washed ashore in their bay. A young man. It is Yanni Zouglas, a local smuggler, says Godfrey who suddenly appears. Max also shows up and Lucy suspects Max of mixing with the smugglers. There is a lot of smuggling between Corfu and Albania, which is just across from the island, separated by a thin strip of water. 

That evening, Lucy's sister is in a panic as she thinks she left her diamond engagement ring in a bag on the beach.  She sends Lucy back to the beach.

The woods were still and silent, the clearing full of starlight. The frogs had dived at my approach; the only sound now from the pool was the lap and stir of the lily pads as the rings of water shimmered through them and set them rocking.

There, Lucy finds the dolphin, lying on the shore. Max, who happens to be there, helps her put it back into the sea. After which he kisses her! They go back to the Gale mansion and there is some more kissing. And some good news.

Spiro is alive but has a broken leg. He is in the mansion with Max, Sir Gale and Adoni. Max says that Godfrey pushed Spiro off the boat and we begin to suspect the photographer of being a smuggler.

Then, Miranda tells Lucy that Adoni has found books in a cave near the Castello villa. Miranda believes they are the mythical magic books of Prospero. Miranda takes Lucy to the cave. Lucy thinks that the 'books' are packages. 

At that moment, Godfrey comes there. The girls hide as he takes away the packages. 

Lucy decides to go after Godfrey and get the packages back. They might be evidence that he is a smuggler. She goes to his boat. She searches the boat for the packages. However, just when she finds them, Godfrey appears and starts the boat. 

When they are well into the sea, Godfrey discovers Lucy. And, though she pretends that she had come on the boat for fun, he soon realizes what she has been up to. There is a struggle between them and Lucy falls into the ocean.

The brave girl swims to the shore somehow. And makes her way to a village. There she finds that she is ten kilometres away from the villas. A young villager takes her home on his motorcycle.

We roared off with a jerk and a cloud of smoke. The road was rutted, surfaced with loose gravel, and twisted like a snake through the olive groves that skirted the steep cliffs, some three hundred feet above the sea. Not a fast road, one would have said—but we took it fast, heeling over on the bends ... The feel of the wind in my hair and the bouncing, roaring speed between my thighs were at once exciting and satisfying after the terrors and frustrations of the night. And I couldn't be afraid. This was—quite literally—the "god in the machine" who had come to the rescue, and he couldn't fail me. I clung grimly to his leather-clad back as we roared along, the shadowy groves flicking past us in a blur of speed, and down—way down—on our left the hollow darkness of the sea...

All at once we were running through a village I knew, and he was slowing down. We ran gently between walls of black cypress, past the cottage in the lemon grove, past the little tea garden with its deserted tables, under the pine, and up to the Castello gate, to stop almost between the pillars.

There she finds Inspector Papadopoulos at Villa Rotha. Max, Adoni, Spiro, Miranda and Godfrey are also there. Godfrey grabs Lucy to try to take her hostage. Foiled, he runs to his boat which explodes.

The novel mixes tense action scenes well with descriptions of the beautiful island and the wonderful villas. Help yourself to a preview on the book cover below:

As with Mary Stewart's other books about Greece, Greek people in This Rough Magic are described as childish folk. But, then, in those days, the Greek was as exotic to the people of the 'West' as we Indians were. A good example of such views was the film, Zorba, the Greek. 

With the next post, we visit Austria, for a change - the setting for Airs Above the Ground. 

A Labyrinthine Tale Set in Crete - The Moon-Spinners

A Nymph In The Forest - Charles-Amable Lenoir, via Wikimedia Commons

Greek myths are enchanting. Outside the European world, those with an interest in natural phenomena stumble upon this wealth as it was used to name flora, fauna, stars and more. The legends bring the night sky to life more powerfully than any other myths from elsewhere. 

In Greece, the beautiful island of Crete is rich with its own legends. 

Theseus Slaying Minotaur (1843), bronze sculpture by Antoine-Louis Barye, via Wikimedia Commons

Once upon a time, a queen of Crete fell in love with a bull and the result was a Minotaur with a bull's tail. Ashamed, the king had a craftsman and his son, Daedalus and Icarus, build a labyrinth, a maze, to keep the beast. There the Minotaur remained, merrily eating young men and women who were sent in to him every year. In time, a hero, Theseus, kills the Minotaur.

Since Daedalus helped Theseus handle the maze, he and his son were so persecuted by the angry king that they tried to escape by making wings with which to fly away. Of course, the wings melted and the story is tragic.

It is against a background of such legends that Mary Stewart creates her Moon-Spinners:

They’re naiads — you know, water-nymphs. Sometimes, when you’re deep in the countryside, you meet three girls, walking along the hill tracks in the dusk, spinning. They each have a spindle, and onto these they are spinning their wool, milk-white, like the moonlight. In fact, it is the moonlight, the moon itself, which is why they don’t carry a distaff... all they have to do is to see that the world gets its hours of darkness, and they do this by spinning the moon down out of the sky. Night after night, you can see the moon getting less and less, the ball of light waning, while it grows on the spindles of the maidens. Then, at length, the moon is gone, and the world has darkness, and rest, and the creatures of the hillsides are safe from the hunter and the tides are still . . .’ ...

‘Then, on the darkest night, the maidens take their spindles down to the sea, to wash their wool. And the wool slips from the spindles, into the water, and unravels in long ripples of light from the shore to the horizon, and there is the moon again, rising from the sea, just a thin curved thread, reappearing in the sky. Only when all the wool is washed, and wound again into a white ball in the sky, can the moonspinners start their work once more, to make the night safe for hunted things . . .’

Click on Preview, above, to peek into the book 

Nicola Ferris works for the British embassy at Athens. She wants to have a peaceful holiday away from it all and heads for Crete. However, from day one, she's thrown into the arms of adventure. In the form of Mark, a wounded Englishman. He got mixed up with some local trouble. Now, Nicola has to shelter him from dangerous men who are after his life. But that's not all. The villains have Mark's brother, a teenager.

Nicola takes up the challenge like any other Mary Stewart heroine would and we can look forwards to some very exciting pages. There are knife attacks and tense chases through the Cretan landscapes as limping Mark and team scramble to hide from rowdy locals. 

Landscape near the village of Kera (Crete, Greece.)Marc Ryckaert, Wikimedia Commons

There bathed his honourable wounds, and dressedHis manly members in the immortal vest

From The 

Iliad, by Alexander Pope

After attending to Mark's injuries, our heroine goes back to the village where she has booked a room. Nicola finds out that the little village is not as innocent as it looks. She discovers the kidnappers and Mark's brother. The brave young lady defeats the plots of the gang and is rewarded with true love.

The Moon Spinners manages to delight genre lovers with great action scenes and it will also be enjoyed by botanists or horticulturalists.

As the Cretan windmills spin their arms, so Mary Stewart spins for us a tale as mythical as anything Homer wrote. Some of her 'legends', however, can be upsetting for those who are not British. In her times, Greeks were considered rather rowdy and barbaric in person. Such old fashioned ideas need not affect the reader as they are a charming way to see what was, to appreciate what is and to shape what shall be.

We must, for example, look at our own society, in India, and wonder if we are indeed rowdy and vengeful as colonial 'legends' paint us. It is entirely in our hands to decide to fit in with or reject stereotypes. 

Windmills on Crete. Michael, Wikimedia Commons

The Moon-Spinners is a wonderful way to enjoy Crete and Greece on a budget. Not many have money to dash around, visiting distant marvelous places! A book costs less than a tourist jaunt and works almost as well.

As added bonus, the novel helps us have a quick glimpse of English literature with quotes from Pope, Wilde, Keats and more!

There is a film of the book. Some don't seem to like it but I remember enjoying it. Perhaps you should watch the film first and then read the book. Sadly, I can't see it sold on Amazon India. Perhaps Netflix will oblige?

Besides the film, there are audio book versions. Here's an excerpt. Note that the narrator does tend to go blah blah for ages before reading from the story.  

The Ivy Tree - Creeps, Grips and Enthralls

The Ivy Tree, set in the bleak British Isles, opens chapters with verses. 

AngelikaGraczyk 

A North Country maid up to London had strayed,
Although with her nature it did not agree.
She wept and she sighed and she bitterly cried,
“I wish once again in the North I could be.
Oh the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree,
They flourish at home in my own country.”

17th Century Song

Mary Grey, a Canadian, has moved to England. Things are not going too well for her. One Sunday finds her walking along Hadrian’s Wall, all alone.

Part of Hadrian's Wall - Jamesflomonosoff , Public Domain 

Lost in her sad thoughts, she hears someone call out.

Annabel!

It's a handsome but dangerous looking man. He is Connor, it turns out, and he seems to think she is his cousin who disappeared. And just before she vanished, her grandfather was going to leave his wealth to her.

Connor, now convinced that Mary is not Annabel, suggests Mary act like Annabel so that they can get the inheritance and share it.  It's not that easy as Mary is the opposite of Annabel in many ways. She hates horses, for example, while the Annabel loved them.

And how can she avoid horses when Matthew Winslow, Connor's uncle and Annabel's grandfather, owns Whitescar, a farm. He's had a stroke and is near death. Even so, the old man is controlling. This is, perhaps, why ruthless Connor, the farm's manager, is bad tempered.

Beanley North Side Farm
by Russel Wills - CC BY-SA 2.0

Connor has a loyal sister who would like him to inherit. And there's Julie, Annabel's cousin, and her boyfriend, Donald, an archaeologist working on Roman excavations. She knows that Annabel had an affair with Adam, a wealthy neighbor.

There are many twists and turns in this suspenseful romantic thriller which the reader cannot anticipate though the heroine is the narrator.

Double acting is a big thing in Indian films. Even around the world, people love stories about mistaken identity and twins and other doppelgangers. 

I really wonder why all Mary Stewart novels were not made into films or TV serials. Some say this novel reminds them of another one by another author - Brat Farrar.

Danger and death entwine themselves around The Ivy Tree, making it a thrilling read. Who is the hero and who the villain? The tension is folded nicely between gentle scenes and romance, making this a great read! 

Click on Preview on the book cover below to get a feel of the writing. And don't hesitate to buy, borrow and read The Ivy Tower, the perfect novel for this time of year. The ebbing monsoon breeze is hauntingly right for such a story.

With the next post, we shall see how Mary Stewart spins a story set in Greece. In a previous excursion through her novels, we visited Delphi and now it's time for Crete, an island surrounded by grand legends.

Colin Dexter - The Secret of Annexe 3

The seventh novel in the Inspector Morse series, Colin Dexter's The Secret of Annexe 3 might not be the first book you'd suggest to a novice reader of the detective genre. But I was led to the book because I'd watched the marvellous Endeavour TV dramas. From there, I meandered into the Inspector Morse TV series. And then found this book in the library.

The detective shows born out of Dexter's novels - particularly Endeavour - weave culture deftly into the fabric of the narrative. However, the book can be a bit of a plod where the television adaptations and especially the offshoots (Endeavour and Lewis) entertain and educate.

Morse turned, and for a few seconds looked back up the short corridor down which they had walked; looked at the marks of many muddy shoes (including their own) on the purple carpeting - the latter seeming to Morse almost as distasteful as the reproduction of the late Renoir, 'Les nues dans l'herbe', which hung on the wall to his right. 

Renoir was a major painter of his time but I have not found the painting mentioned. For the Indian reader, here is a sample of his work. Do look into Renoir's output and delight. 

 

Auguste Renoir: Luncheon of the Boating Party

Interestingly, The Secret of Annexe 3 might be the only Morse novel with no specific show based on it. Some say The Secret of Bay 5B (hard to find) draws something from it.

I must admit that I was also charmed by descriptions of the author's personality and the anecdote of how he came to write crime stories. They say that it was during a rainy holiday in the countryside. Holed up with a bunch of restless kids, he sat himself down at the kitchen table and out came the first story. However, nothing else about the man suggests any engagement with crime and punishment. He looks like a shy, kindly old academic and that, it appears, is what he was. 

But he does share traits with the detective he birthed: they both love doing crossword puzzles. The imaginary crime fighter loves classical music too - Wagner operas in particular.  

Dexter gave Morse his own interests: that fondness for Wagner, pleasure in cryptic crosswords and liking for real ales and single malt whisky. Both men were heavy smokers.

Colin Dexter obituary: Inspector Morse creator and one of the great whodunnit men

 

Getting back to the culture component, here is some Wagner in the times of the pandemic:

The Secret of Annexe 3 will delight those who enjoy reading about police procedurals:

Morse had asked him to check (factually) with Phillips all the names and addresses of those staying in the hotel, and briefly himself to interview as many vital witnesses as he could find – with Phillips to take on the rest; to try to form a picture (synoptically) of the scene at the hotel on the previous evening; and to keep his antennae attuned (almost metaphysically, it appeared) for any signals from an unsuspected psychopath or any posthumous transmissions from the newly dead. Festivities – all of them, including the pantomime – had been cancelled, and the hotel was now grimly still, with not even the quiet click of snooker balls from the games room to suggest that murder was anything but a deadly serious matter.

In contrast to the debonair Inspector Morse, Dexter created Detective Sergeant Robert Lewis. 

Lewis himself had never spent a Christmas or a New Year away from home since his marriage; and although he knew that family life was hardly prize-winning roses all along the way, he had never felt the urge to get away from his own modest semi-detached house up in Headington over such holiday periods. Yet now – most oddly, considering the circumstances – he began to see for the first time, some of the potential attractions: no frenetic last-minute purchases from supermarkets; no pre-feastday preparations of stuffings and sauces; no sticky saucepans to scour; no washing-up of plates and cutlery. Yes! Perhaps Lewis would mention the idea to the missus, for it seemed perfectly clear to him as he spoke to guest after guest that a wondrously good time was being had by all – until a man had been found murdered.

The murder takes place in a cosy hotel where people routinely book themselves in to celebrate things. And, in a nutshell, that is what the story will do for you and why you should probably decide to read it this Christmas or gift it. After all, it might be some time before we can book ourselves into a hotel for a holiday!