Not on the bedroom carpet, darling, I paid good money for that

I've always been fascinated by lurid accounts of historical murders, and luckily, Britain has no shortage of those. I was familiar with the case of Edith Thompson, hanged in 1923 for the murder of her husband, but I had no idea the story had been the basis for a fairly recent film, 2001's Another Life.

The case has always fascinated me, mainly because the accounts of the story I've read always seem to indicate that Edith was unjustly executed. I'm not sure how much poetic license was taken with the film, but I have more questions after seeing it.

Edith Thompson was portrayed in the film as a high-spirited, fun loving girl. She giggled and twirled her way through life. A thoroughly modern woman, she had a good job as a book keeper at a hat store, and flirted outrageously with her boss, portrayed by a sympathetic Tom Wilkinson.

The true tragedy in the story was when the spunky Edith married dull, stodgy, old-before-his-time Percy Thompson. Percy was an accountant, and the son of a right sour-faced old cow (sorry, the Eastenders influence sometimes overcomes me!). World War I is approaching, and no doubt the romance of a possibly permanent separation helped to speed up the wedding. It turns out that Percy had a "bad ticker" that kept him out of the war. He was so pleased to be avoiding the conflict, and so eager to give others advice on how to fake a "dodgy ticker," that Edith lost what little respect she'd had for him. She also earned more than he did, which also served to increase her contempt for him.

Enter Frederick Bywaters. Edith's family knew Freddy as something of a neighborhood thug in his youth. He's grown up now, although Edith is still nearly a decade his senior. Freddy works as a sailor and is frequently gone on to sea, which no doubt only increased his romantic appeal -- visiting all those exotic ports of call, while poor Edith was stuck living in Ilford with boring old Percy. Although Edith's unmarried sister Avis is interested in Freddy, he and Edith begin a long and torrid affair.

At first, Freddy lives with the Thompsons when he's not at sea. It doesn't take long for Percy to suspect that something is going on with his wife and their young lodger. Freddy is banished, but he and Edith continue their relationship. While he is at sea, they being a long and torrid correspondence. This is where Edith gets into trouble. Although she is very modern in her views, she is opposed to getting a divorce. She is worried about what the neighbors would think, and she also states that she would lose her job as a divorced woman. So she convinces Freddy to continue their relationship as it is.

This continues for a while, but she eventually grows so tired of Percy that she asks for a separation. This Percy adamantly refuses to grant, although he seems to be fully aware that his wife is carrying on an affair (she comes in late most nights when Freddy is in town). It is at this point that talk of murdering Percy surfaces. Freddy is apparently serious about the idea, but, as portrayed in the film, Edith goes along with the idea only in theory. She cheerfully writes to Freddy about her attempts to poison her husband, first with ground glass in his food, and later with powders Freddy sent her to induce an abortion. Did she really try to kill Percy? I guess that is where the true question of the case lies. Certainly, in the film she's shown dropping light bulbs, sweeping up glass, and watching intently as Percy eats. Who's to know?

One evening, after Freddy has pressed her to once again leave her husband, Edith states that she and Percy are going to the theatre that night. As they return home, an assailant jumps out of the bushes and stabs Percy to death. Freddy is quickly caught, and there's really no attempt on his part to deny guilt. Edith is arrested as an accomplice, although she denies all knowledge of the murder. Naturally, the police have her letters, which seem to admit to numerous prior attempts on her husband's life.

It was also interesting to see the actual execution scene. I wonder how true to life it was? In the film, Edith becomes hysterical and has to be drugged. She is then carried, more or less unconscious, to the gallows. Of course, for her sake, I hope that part at least was accurate!

Many believe that Edith was executed, not for murdering her husband, but for the sin of being a married middle class woman who committed adultery. I must admit that I didn't have any doubt of her innocence before I saw all of her "joking" about trying to kill her husband. The final credits of the film contained the information that the files from the case were sealed for 100 years, which means they should be open for inspection in 13 years. It will be interesting to see if any new revelations come to light when that happens.

Final verdict for Another Life: Four Gherkins, for being an interesting depiction of a real-life mystery

If only they'd stayed on Baker Street

It really started out quite promising. In the book, The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson, Reggie Heath's law firm takes over the building in London which has the address where 221B Baker Street would be, if it were still in existence. As part of the lease agreement, the current tenants agree to answer any letters the arrive addressed to Sherlock Holmes. Apparently, there are plenty. No correspondence is to be entered into, but rather a form letter acknowledging receipt of the letter is sent, along with some general words thanking the sender. As it happens, Reggie's perpetually underachieving brother Nigel can just about handle the mindless task of answering the Holmes letters -- at least until he can appear before the legal authorities to explain why he should be allowed to practice law again. There was apparently an unfortunate incident with a client, who misunderstood Nigel's attempts to return a legal fee as an attempted sexual assault (as so often happens).

Anyway, Nigel becomes interested in one of the Holmes letters, written by a young American girl 20 years earlier. She'd asked Sherlock Holmes to help find her missing father. The letter also included some maps that the father had been working on when he disappeared. Now, 20 years later, two more letters, supposedly from the same girl, have arrived asking for the return of the maps. Nigel doesn't think the girl wrote the new letters. He attempts to interest Reggie in the case, but the self-absorbed Reggie can't be bothered -- until Nigel turns up missing and Reggie's clerk turns up dead in Nigel's office.

Reggie follows Nigel to Los Angeles in an attempt to track him down and prove that he didn't kill the clerk. Naturally, soon after his arrival in LA, Reggie is on the scene as a new murder victim is discovered, so he must now work to clear both himself and his brother of the murder charges.

Unfortunately, the characters didn't spend much time in London. Which is a pity. Although I don't know if it would have saved this book, it would surely have made things more interesting. As it was, there was so much wrong with this book that I was amazed it was published. Where was the editor? Among the problems that so vexed me:

1) Reggie arrives in LA and hops in a cab. He has the address where the girl from the letters lived 20 years ago, but that house is abandoned. He then calls directory assistance to get her new address. The cab driver takes him there and leaves. Then Reggie gets out his cell phone, only to discover it doesn't work in the U.S. SO HOW DID HE CALL DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE FROM THE BACK OF THE CAB????

2) Reggie tracks Nigel to a low-budget hotel and begins asking questions. No one wants to talk, so Reggie tries bribes -- with £20 notes. The first person he tries to give one asks what it is, and when Reggie assures him that the money is worth nearly double that in dollars, everyone accepts it -- hotel clerks, cabbies, cafe workers, etc. Later in the story Reggie grumbles about a long layover in Newark, BUT HE HAD NO TIME TO CHANGE ANY MONEY? And everyone in LA accepts British money in relatively small denominations? Surely the exchange fees would eat up the balance?

3) Reggie, seemingly at random, checks into a hotel in LA. Immediately, he begins to receive faxes, phone calls, visits from the police, etc. IS EVERYONE PSYCHIC? Or did he have some sort of universal tracking device attached to him that told everyone where they could find him?

4) As he checks in at his hotel, the desk clerk informs him they can "set him up with an American cell phone." This is helpful, because he's forever getting calls from people who ask things like, "Is this the British guy who's looking for his brother?" Really? How would you ever request that number from directory assistance?

I listened to the audio book, and the problems continued.

5) The girl who wrote the letters, Mara Ramirez, was apparently sufficiently schooled in the English language at age 8 to write a legible letter to Sherlock Holmes. Yet, 20 years later, she speaks with a bizarre accent. It's probably meant to be Spanish, but comes across more like Russian. We later meet someone from her family, who has no accent at all. Um, why would she have an accent at all if she's lived in the US her whole life? Weird.

6) There is also the methane problem. The story revolves around tunneling for a new subway system in LA, with the construction endangered by methane gas pockets. Reggie, understandably, pronounces methane in the British way: MEE-thane. However, the American characters, inexplicably, have the same pronunciation, instead of how Americans would actually pronounce it: METH-ane. It's jarring to have a character who is supposed to be an American suddenly come out with MEE-thane. Not at all believable.

So all in all, this book was just a disaster. Add to that the fact that the story was quite uninteresting, and you have a dud of a book. I really never cared about any of the characters, and spent the whole time just wishing they'd get back to London or that the story would improve. Sadly, neither happened.

Final Verdict for The Baker Street Letters: Zero Gherkins, for being a terrible, illogical mishmash of a book

Poldark DVD winners!

The winners have been randomly chosen to receive the Poldark series one DVD from Acorn Media. The winners were:

mogrill

Nancy in HI

Jinxy and Me

Congrats to all the winners! The winners have been notified and the DVDs should arrive soon. Thanks to everyone who entered, and watch this space for future giveaways!

But was it a stranger?

The book The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters is meant to be a spooky, atmospheric ghost story, set in a crumbling old stately home in the English countryside. The "action" is glacial and the characters are frustratingly repetitive in their actions, so that the story quickly lost any spooky flavor for me.

The events in the novel take place in the years immediately following WWII. Dr. Faraday, a 40-something bachelor, is called out to the stately home, The Hundreds, to treat a new maid, 14 year old Betty. He quickly deduces that the girl is suffering from homesickness and unease at being alone at night in the cold, damp basement area of the house. She tells the doctor on this first visit that there's something bad in the house. Of course, the doctor dismisses any such nonsense (as he continues to do throughout the story) and basically tells Betty to grow up and stop her foolishness.

He then becomes acquainted with the owners of the house, the Ayers family, which has fallen on hard times (hence only having the one maid). The widowed mother lives there with her two children: Roderick, who was injured in WWII and Caroline. Both children are unmarried, in their 20s, and somewhat isolated. It also emerges that there was an older child, Susan, who died of diphtheria before her siblings were born.

Due to Roderick's injured leg, Dr. Faraday becomes a frequent visitor to the house, working on an experimental treatment to help Roderick regain movement. He is invited to a social gathering at the house which turns out to be held for the purpose of introducing the plain Caroline to an eligible bachelor who is new to the area. It is at this party that the first of several tragic events happens in the house.

This is where the story begins to break down. The reader is treated to exhaustive narrations of "strange things" that happen in the house, but that turn out to be not much of anything really (when we finally get to the point). As members of the house become convinced that there is something haunting it (although this thought is never so succinctly put into words), the doctor continues to treat the entire idea as ludicrous. The Ayers family begins to disintegrate, but it never seems to occur to anyone that they should, oh, I don't know, go away to the seaside for a change of scenery for a few days. You'd think that if you truly felt there was an evil presence in your house, the first thing you'd want to do would be to distance yourself from it. But no, everyone just keeps a stiff upper lip and carries on with the work of being haunted. {yawn}

So this goes on for a while until the inevitable crisis happens. Even after the final events play out, the doctor is still reluctant to believe that there was anything unusual going on in the house. So, really, what was the point of the story? If it was a real "ghost story," we saw precious little of the spirits. If the people living there were simply going quietly insane (as the doctor seemed to have thought), they surely took their time about it.

Oddly, Stephen King apparently named The Little Stranger as his favorite book of 2009. Strange indeed.
Final verdict for The Little Stranger: Two gherkins, for a promising start, but an overall disappointing story

I go from a corruptible crown to an incorruptible one

The English Civil War is the setting for the novel Rebels & Traitors by Lindsey Davis. The events in the novel take place between from the 1630s to the 1650s and follow the lives of printer Gideon Jukes and Juliana Lovell, whose husband is missing after a battle.

Gideon Jukes was born into a family of grocers. Unfortunately, he was the younger son, so there was no place for him in the family business. Through the intervention of an uncle, he was apprenticed to a printer. At the time, it could be dangerous work to be in the printing trade, depending on what sort of jobs you were asked to take. Eventually, Gideon becomes a partner in the printing business just as rumblings of revolt begin in the country. Gideon joins the armed London Trained Bands in support of Parliament and against the king. Meanwhile, the orphaned Juliana Carlill is married to a soldier in the Royalist service.

In addition to giving us a moving account of King Charles I's final moments, the book is a treasure trove of historical fact. There is much information about the daily lives of people during that time, as well as accounts of the people, battles and events that lead to the King's downfall. In addition, we have the love story of two characters who initially were on opposite sides of the conflict. All in all, the book is an epic saga of a turning point in English history.

I received a review copy of the book from St. Martin's Press, which in no way influenced my review.

Final verdict for Rebels & Traitors: Four Gherkins, for being a sweeping look at a turbulent time in English history

But I thought they had CCTV cameras everywhere!

The infamous "Moors Murders" of the 1960s were a clear influence on author Belinda Bauer. Her book Blacklands deals with a child murderer who buried his victims on a moor outside the small town of Shipcott. Some of his victims were never found.

Eighteen years ago, Steven Lamb's uncle Billy was one of the victims of killer Arnold Avery. Twelve year old Steven and his younger brother Davie live with their mother and grandmother in a run-down house. The entire family is terribly dysfunctional and unhappy, and Steven thinks that if he can only discover his Uncle Billy's remains, his grandmother will cease to be so angry and they can have a normal family. Whenever he has a spare moment, Steven goes out with a shovel and digs random holes on the moor, hoping to find his uncle's grave.

When Steven gets praise from a teacher for a letter-writing assignment, he gets the idea to write to Avery in prison and ask for help in finding his uncle's body. Avery knows he'll never be released from prison, but he hasn't lost his obsession with children. He spends his days reliving his crimes. When he receives the letter, he doesn't at first realize it is from a child. Instead, he thinks he can use the opportunity to manipulate the letter writer into providing him with more mementos from his crimes. He asks his correspondent, "SL" to send him a photo of a certain area of the moor, to help him to pinpoint where he buried the body. In reality, he wants to be reminded of the place where he buried another victim. In taking the photo, Steven makes a critical mistake which will put his life in danger.

While this book was somewhat suspenseful, the depiction of poverty, hopelessness and despair was just too overwhelming. Of course, I had no illusions that a book which centered around a child killer would be uplifting, but even with him in prison, everyone is miserable and takes it out on the children who are left. Still, the book does end on a somewhat more hopeful note, so it wasn't a total downer.

Final verdict for Blacklands: Two gherkins, for being a page-turning, if somewhat depressing mystery

When you're thinking you appear to others to be asleep

Poor Ross Poldark. First he was taken captive during the American Revolution and spent some time in a French prison camp. He escaped and made his way back home to Cornwall, but maybe he should have stayed in America! During his absence, his father died, his uncle set about making deals to sell off family assets, his family home is falling apart, and his beloved Elizabeth has gotten engaged to his cousin Francis. Not the sort of homecoming he'd imagined!

To be sure, Poldark had something of a shady past before leaving for the colonies. Still, it's hard not to feel sorry for a man who returns to a world that has so drastically changed. He immediately sets about trying to get one of his father's mines up and running again, and takes in a semi-wild country girl as a servant (who is meant to help the perpetually drunken groom and housekeeper he inherited from his father!). It seems that whatever he does, Poldark unwittingly makes enemies. The series plays out with duels, revolts, smuggling, murder, treachery and looming financial ruin -- things just don't go smoothly for Poldark!

First shown on Masterpiece Theatre in 1975, the epic story of Poldark is now available on DVD. It has been called the British Gone With the Wind. The first season consists of 16 episodes of intrigue, romance and beautiful scenery! I appreciated the fact that you can turn on subtitles as you watch. This is always helpful, since I don't want to miss anything! Although the series is 35 years old, it doesn't feel dated at all. The costumes are lovely and the rugged Cornwall countryside is beautiful and bleak. One of the DVDs in the set also has a very interesting overview of the history and current situation in Cornwall.

Thanks to Katie at Acorn Media, I have 3 copies of the first series to give away! To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite costume drama. Or, if you don't have one, what is a TV series that you'd love to see again? Please be sure to leave your email in your comments so that I can contact you if you are a winner. The contest ends on Thursday, Feb. 25 and the winners will be chosen by random.org. I'll contact the winners who will have 72 hours to respond, or I'll have to choose another winner.

I received a review copy of Poldark from Acorn Media, which in no way influenced my review.

Final Verdict for Poldark: Four Gherkins, for being a beautiful classic series with unforgettable characters