Dolken från Tunis
(The Murder of Roger Ackroyd)
Agatha Christie
234 p.

For Decades ‘08.

B. Wahlström, 2002.
(first published 1926.)

Back cover blurb:

Mannen satt som jag lämnat honom, i länstolen framför eldstaden. Hans huvud hade fallit åt sidan. På ryggen, strax under kavajkragen, syntes ett blankt föremål - en märklig dolk.

Dolken från Tunis av deckardrottningen Agatha Christie - en klassiker som trollbundit läsare över hela världen!

I’m not a big Agatha Christie fan, not because I dislike her writing, but because I haven’t read much of it. I have read The ABC Murders and now this one. The first I read because I had run out of books whilst on a boat, and this one I read because I was interested as to how Christie would handle the topic. I already knew who murdered Ackroyd, I just wondered how on Earth it could be written convincingly. Without spilling the beans, I was so amazed. It was so clever! Alright, I wish I didn’t know who was the killer. (That is why I am trying to convince someone who doesn’t know who the killer is to read it. I have been this far unsuccessful.)

To my great disappointment, I couldn’t find an English copy of this book. I lent it at the library, because I wasn’t so desperate that I would pay for it. (I usually am.) However, despite searching high and low, I couldn’t for anything find it in English. I went mad looking in the English section. Therefore, I had to settle with the Swedish translation. I dislike reading in translation, because I feel that it is very likely something’s been lost in the translation. Therefore I try not to. (which is why I read so much in English!) Though, I think, this translation was pretty decent. I mean, I never ever cringed. And that’s something.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
94 p.

For Decades ‘08.

Giunti Gruppo Editoriale, 2001.
(first published by Longmans, Green & Co 1886.)

Back cover blurb:

It was the cures of mankind… that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling.

I just must say that this edition is so weird. It was bought in Italy, it’s published by an Italian publisher, but still it’s in English and all! It’s crazy. Because of this, I have been completely unable to find the cover. It’s not much to see, really. It’s a picture by Toulouse-Lautrec, which is a little weird, I think.

Me being a human being, I more or less knew what this novella is about. What did not know was the perspective it was told. It is told indirectly, without any real showdown with Jekyll and Hyde. And that was amazing. I didn’t have a clue that it was told in that way. I’ve previously seen the musical version of this story, and perhaps some TV-version as well (I can’t really remember, I see so many strange things), and there it is told very straight-forward. The novella is completely reliant on the suspense that is built up. You know something is strange, but you can’t really see what it is, until just at the end. I suppose that is an element of gothic fiction. In the musical there was women in it (SHOCKING I KNOW), but in the novella, there’s nothing of a kind. In fact, there are very few characters. There’s the narrator, two of his friends, a butler and Jekyll/Hyde. And possibly some other very small roles, as well. It is impressive what an atmosphere Stevenson builds up with only these few characters.

I read this the evening after finishing Assassin’s Apprentice, and if the Forged scared me, it was nothing against how Mr Hyde terrified me. Right, I am very easily scared, but still! Stevenson is more than a little talented. (read, a lot.)

Biggles Sees It Through
(in Biggles’ Big Adventures)
Captain W.E. Jones
186 p.

For Decades ‘08.

Prion, 2007.
(first published 1941)

Back cover blurb:

none

Biggles and his boys are in Finland, trying to do away with intruding Russian troops. Then they meet a Polish scientist, who has made great scientific advances about the atom bomb or something like that (all I understood is that it is something Very Important, and after getting the mission they don’t care about what is in the papers, really.), who has hidden away these papers, but must be retrieved by the British, so the Russian or German troops can’t get to them. Biggles, Algy and Ginger jump onto this chance like a crocodile jumps onto its food. Unfortunately, they don’t do very well. In the end they get the papers and they even survive, but before that they have won and lost the papers a number of times, of course to the evil von Stahlhein. They lose an unbelievable amount of aircrafts, but that is part of the charm. While trekking through an icy lake, Algy exclaims ‘D’you know, [...], I remember the time whn I used to do this sort of thing for fun. We called it a picninc.’ (354-355) This quote more or less sums up what happens in this novel. It is a very failed picnic.

But it hilarious. We have double-agents, smoking, Ginger stealing food, planes being lost, Biggles being chased by a bear. Could it be better?! Alright, maybe it could. Sometimes, the story trudges on quite slowly, and I, as a reader, am impatient to get on with the story. It is maybe my impatience, or perhaps some flaw of W.E. Jones’. Despite this sometime slow language, it is a hell of a story.

Biggles in the Baltic
(in Biggles’ Big Adventures)
Captain W.E. Jones
211 p.

For Decades ‘08.

Prion, 2007.
(first published 1940.)

Back cover blurb:

none

Biggles! Biggles, Biggles, Biggles. When I was young, the only proper series of childrens’ books I read was the Nancy Drew novels, which admittedly weren’t the most fascinating things ever, but they managed to pull me in, at least. Having read Biggles now, I feel that I ought to have spent my childhood reading those books. Not only would it have suited me much better as a person, but also they are better novels, with more rounded and convincing characters. Biggles? Pretty cool. Algy? Hilarious. Ginger? So cute. And an evil Nazi! It felt so remniscent of all these modern films where there are evil Nazis, Communists, etc., except this was from the time where the Third Reich was actually going on! Oh, I haven’t read much Second World War fiction, but I feel that a childrens’ novel from that time is good enough.

And everything was so British! And no one swore, even though people smoked quite a lot. The only thing I can say against this novel is that they had so much plane terminology which I’m not familiar with, but seeing as they are about planes, it isn’t that strange. Hopefully I will learn.

Plotwise, this novel is hilarious. They are hiding in a rock and doing raids on German places now and then. I think they lose about five planes, and later they steal a German plane and people get stuck on the rock and everyone loses everyone else, and it is just brilliant. So over-the-top! When you think the novel should end, because everything is fixed, you realise there are another fifty pages, and something will go horribly awry before the novel ends. And, I think, because of all these crazy stuff that barely seems plausible, it is an extremely good story.