Just Finished Reading: The Measure of Malice – Scientific Detective Stories edited by Martin Edwards (FP: 2020) [321pp] 

As always with any collection of stories from various authors – even Classic ones – books like these tend to be a bit of a roller-coaster in quality. Styles change over a century or more and such changes don’t always translate too well for a more modern reader. That said this was in no way a bad collection of stories. It wasn’t. 

Things started out strong with (inevitably) a Sherlock Holmes tale The Boscombe Valley Mystery (1891) where a young man is accused of murder based on circumstantial evidence. As Holmes investigates a number of pieces of physical evidence acquired at the scene points towards his innocence. The next story, The Horror of Studley Grange (1894) by L T Meade and Clifford Halifax, whilst interesting (or weird depending on your PoV) rested too much on two of my particular bugbears where ‘thrillers’ are concerned: the unreliable narrator or liar as I prefer to call them and the fact that strange things/occurrences are taken at face value – even when they’re clearly irrational/unreasonable - until the detective (in this case a doctor) decides that things don’t make sense and starts to actually INVESTIGATE things! I can only imagine that in that age the author didn’t expect his readership to think scientifically or forensically about the case being presented to them.  

Doctors seemed to be a regular stand-in for detectives for a considerable time and appeared at least as subject matter experts (SMEs) in a number of tales in this collection including a fun little one called The Cyprian Bees (1924) by Anthony Wynne. As you might expect the murder ‘weapon’ was a rather unusual one. I’m not 100% sure that the science would work as advertised in the story, but it was definitely an interesting way to do the deed! Along with the medical profession a classic detective substitute is the insurance company investigator. A very good example of this was The Contents of a Mare’s Nest (1927) by R Austin Freeman where a claim is questioned despite (or rather because of) the body of the deceased being rather hastily cremated to avoid forensic examination. Or so the perpetrator thought! 

I’ll just mention two more. The Broken Toad (1934) by H C Bailey had a convoluted plot and a very nice piece of misdirection which kept me guessing right to the end and In the Teeth of the Evidence (1939) by Dorothy L Sayers which revolved around the expert evidence of a local dentist after an apparent suicide turns out to be something far more sinister. 

Overall, despite a few wobbles and niggles, this was a solid collection of detective shorts with a definite science bias – although the ‘science’ involved was at least once on very dodgy ground! As always with such things this is an excellent way to get into classic crime or to find new authors to try out in future novels. Recommended.   

Welcome to December. We made it! As its now *officially* Winter - according to the Met Office at least - there will be a noticeable uptick of Winter, Christmas & (next month) New Years related posts. So, wrap up warm and hopefully enjoy.... Oh, and there's even going to be a few Winter related book posts..... 

I can't help wondering if those weird looking anti-drone EMP guns would work on them? Either that or a full mag of light-armour piercing caseless from a Pulse Rifle.... 

Happy Birthday: Joel Daniel Coen (born November 29, 1954) is an American filmmaker. Working alongside his brother Ethan, he has directed, written, edited and produced many feature films, the most acclaimed of which include Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), No Country for Old Men (2007), A Serious Man (2009), True Grit (2010) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2014).

The duo began directing separately in the 2020s. Joel directed the 2021 thriller The Tragedy of Macbeth (adapted from the Shakespeare play) starring Denzel Washington and Coen's wife Frances McDormand. The film was his first solo directorial effort, and was nominated for three Academy Awards. Joel is set to direct another film, Jack of Spades.

The brothers, together, have won four Academy Awards from 14 nominations; one for writing Fargo, and three for writing, directing, and producing No Country For Old Men. They also won a Palme d'Or for Barton Fink.

Just Finished Reading: The Spanish Armada by Robert Hutchinson (FP: 2013) [254pp] 

It was, without doubt, a turning point heralding both the rise of England to global power status and the long slow decline of the Spanish Empire into eventual obscurity. The Great Enterprise of the Spanish Armada was supposed to ring the death knell of Elizabeth’s Protestant England. Not only did it fail in rather spectacular fashion it set in motion a chain of events that would change Europe and the world forever. 

The launch of the Armada in 1588 came as no great surprise to anyone. Not only was Spain an avowed enemy of England after the accension of Elizabeth to the throne in late 1558 but Phillip II (ex-husband of Mary I of England) had publicly vowed to expunge the heretical monarch by fire and invasion if necessary. As the Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604) dragged on plans were drawn and ships began to cluster in various ports ready to destroy the English navy [I had to constantly correct myself thinking of England’s forces as “British” or thinking of England as either Britain/Great Britain or the UK as such entities had yet to come into existence] and facilitate a full invasion from the Spanish held Netherlands. Such a fleet took an inordinate amount of time to bring together. So long indeed that the early stores brought aboard began in rot in their casks. The fleet itself was a motley collection of newly commissioned ships, barges, older warships and even oar powered/assisted galleons. In all the fleet consisted of 141 ships and took two days just to leave port. Moving at the speed of the slowest ship it progressed towards England at a pace of 4MPH.  

From the ‘off’ things did not go well. Bad weather forced several ships back into port almost immediately and later storms forced several ships to leave for repairs. Finally reaching the English Channel it began to face increasing attacks from English warships which although smaller than many of their Spanish counterparts where much nimbler, better crewed and better armed. The failings of the Armada began to become obvious to all concerned. Barely half of the actual Armada were warships whilst most of the English ships could be described as such. Although the English did have a number of armed merchantmen the majority were very much men-o-war manned by experienced and hardened combat veterans. Retiring to Calais to await the invasion force from the Netherlands, the Spanish fleet were set upon by 8 English fireships causing only slight damage overall but scattering the remainder and beaching several ships. Interestingly, these 8 ships were the only English losses attributed to the fighting.  

Scattered, harried and with contrary winds – to say nothing of the dead and dying from various encounters including the Battle of Gravelines – the Armada pushed into the North Sea with the idea of circumnavigating the British Isles and returning to Spain. This is where things got really bad for the fleet. A mixture of unseasonably stormy weather, lack of charts, death, disease and fast running out supplies meant that the remaining 110 ships suffered greatly on their journey home. Finally, months after they sailed certain of their victory, only 35 ships made it back many containing hundreds of dead and dying. It was a disaster of epic proportions. Spain would never fully recover. 

Naturally the tale of the Spanish Armada is taught with pride (or at least it was in my time) in British schools – despite the fact that most of the damage was done by our notoriously fickle weather. Although its arguable if the Armada could ever have been successful even without the storms it's equally arguable that a successful invasion (if possible) would have ended Elizabeth’s reign reasonably easily. But I think a LOT would have had to have been different for this counter-factual to have much credence. Evidence at the time as well as later evidence from the many wrecks around the coast shows just how unprepared the Spanish had been relying as they did on God and the justice of their cause rather than solid logistics, a well thought out plan and seaworthy ships.  

As an aside, after receiving the rather odd update on my ancestry – that my DNA is apparently 2% Spanish – I paid particular attention to the crews of Spanish ships that washed up on the Irish coast on their way home. It seems that the vast majority either drowned (the idea I understand that it was ‘bad luck’ for a sailor to know how to swim) or were killed on the shoreline (as either invaders or, rather strangely, because of an idea that if you saved someone from the sea then it would be ‘compensated’ by the drowning of a local). Some of the richer survivors did manage to pay their way home (as always) but there is some evidence that a handful of survivors did settle in Ireland in various capacities. It's possible (just) that one of these Spaniards was an ancestor of mine – although I doubt very much if I’m going to find any documentation of a Pedro Gonzales married to Bridget Doyle in 1589.  

Overall, this was a very good examination of why the Armada happened and why it ultimately failed. Even if you have a reasonable familiarity with the events this can still highlight much that you might have missed from your school, movies or casual reading. Definitely worth a read.

Imagine being asked where you live.....?