Friday Favorites: Old Friends Revisited

Jul 20, 2018 |

Dear old blog o’ mine, I’ve missed you! I’m back from my travels (see my instagram for recent photos) and am eager to get back into the routine here.

Lately I’ve had cozy mysteries on the brain. To be honest, I’m always in the mood for cozy English mysteries–particularly those set in the 1920s and 30s. Lately, however, I’ve struggled to find anything new, so I turned to a couple of old favorites.


Mrs. Bradley Mysteries
When I saw it featured on BritBox, I was keen to revisit this five-episode series from 1999-2000. (The dvd set also is available for purchase from Amazon.) The episodes are fun and frothy, with a very manageable amount of menace and Gothic spookiness. Diana Rigg is marvelous, of course, and I happen to like when Mrs. Bradley breaks the fourth wall to explain things to viewers. It’s all good fun, though I rather wish I’d skipped “Rising of the Moon,” the traveling circus episode. (Why do traveling circus episodes–no matter the series–so often end up tedious and mildly offensive?)

You might be interested to know that Mrs. Bradley’s creator, Gladys Mitchell, wrote 66 (!!) books featuring this heroine, and was a member of the Detection Club along with many familiar mystery writers of the 1930s (including Dorothy Sayers & Agatha Christie). I’ve just started The Croaking Raven and it’s interesting to find the sleuth, referred to as “Dame Beatrice” rather than Mrs. Bradley, much less glamorous than her TV counterpart. Still a hoot, however!


Brat Farrar
When I was a teen my mom lured me into watching the BBC adaptation of Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar on PBS. Though I was skeptical at first, I was quite smitten by the lead actor, Mark Greenstreet, and soon enough was thoroughly drawn into the mystery. This may, in fact, have been my introduction to cozy mysteries, for it wasn’t until the next year that the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane trilogy aired on PBS. (Note: I can’t find the Brat Farrar series on DVD or streaming, but apparently one can watch it on YouTube!)

Just last week I was facing a long solo drive to TN and was looking for a mystery on audio to help while away the time. You can imagine how pleased I was to find a well-reviewed audio adaptation of Brat Farrar on Audible.com. I was quite impressed by Carole Boyd’s vocal performance, and the mystery was even more compelling to Adult Sonia than it was to the teen. (Horsey people will particularly like this book.) If you’re a fan of audio books and Josephine Tey, you might try it. As for me, I probably need to read all the Inspector Grant novels, yes? (Daughter of Time is a favorite of mine.) I’d also like to find a good biography of Tey, so if you have one to recommend do let me know. I did listen to the first book in Nicola Upson’s series featuring Josephine Tey as a sleuth, but didn’t love it. Perhaps I should try reading rather than listening? This Q&A with Upson intrigues me.

How about you? What lovely books have you been reading lately?

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