[Previous entry: "Outside"] [Next entry: "Foreign Country"]

01/10/2004: "A"

I finished the first book in the series I resolved to read, and I have already broken one of the rules I set for myself. I read The Allingham Minibus, by Marjorie Allingham, a collection of short works. she was renowned and popular in her time as an author of tales of detection, but I was unable to find one of her more characteristic novels, so I read this. As is to be expected in a posthumous miscellany, the stories were variable in maturity, somewhat repetitive in plotting, but not altogether a bad introduction to her work. The stories are well-written and atmospheric, more successful in plotting than characterization. The longest story in the book (Quarter of a Million) is the least successful, with too much plot, too many characters, and far-fetched action. It is the only story, though, which exhibits these qualities to any degree. Mostly pretty good.