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todayiamadaisyIf I have to be sick, I'd rather be properly sick. It's terribly galling to feel out of sorts only to take one's temperature and discover it's disgustingly normal. Happily (er, sort of) my temperature hit 40oC on Sunday (or about 104o for Fahrenheit-minded readers). So, unpleasant as all the chills and fevers of this last week have been, at least I can say I've been sick.
Sleeping was all I could manage to do these last few days. Even a game of Minesweeper exhausted me (and, not for the first time, made me glad those mines aren't real) but I felt well enough today to sit in the garden and read. So I picked a mystery novel, something not too challenging, so as not to tax my fevered brain; this was a mistake. I have never hated a heroine so quickly and with such vehemence before.
The idea was that this woman, Ingrid, and her husband, Patrick, work together in a top-secret division of MI5, and they were called on to solve the murder of Terry, one of their colleagues. So far, so good. But Ingrid is not a career spy at all... no, she's a top-selling novelist (of such titles as Three Bells for the Cat). And Patrick? Patrick is a soldier (who lost a leg in the Falklands conflict) turned spy, who is contemplating one day becoming a vicar like his father, while in the meantime acting as Ingrid's agent. Patrick and Ingrid were married for ten years before divorcing, then remarrying four years later. They now have an infant son, who is cared for by a live-in nanny, whom they have made to sign the Official Secrets Act, so they can discuss their work with her.
I don't know quite what it was about Ingrid that made me hate her. I can put up with a great deal of preposterousness, so the improbable family life of Ingrid and Patrick shouldn't necessarily be a turn-off. Perhaps it was because she introduced herself as "Ingrid Langley, the novelist". Perhaps it was because Ingrid and Patrick were so spectacularly humourless - their job is serious, certainly, but they cross the line into sanctimony quite early on ('It's a bit quaint these days... dying for people,' Steve said. 'Then you'll find Patrick quaint,' I said. 'Horribly quaint.'). Perhaps it was because Ingrid was telling the story in the first person and I just didn't like her attitude. This is what happens after Terry's funeral: as they come home, the phone is ringing. Patrick answers it, Ingrid stops to read a note left by the nanny, then tells the reader:
I had a lot of work to do. At last I had completed Echoes of Murder, my latest novel, in rough, and could now go ahead with the final draft. (No one yet has talked me into buying a word processor.) I was hoping to finish this in time to be able to accept an invitation to watch the commencement of filming of the screen adaptation of another novel, as yet only published in the States, A Man Called Céleste, which had unfortunately been retitled The Immortality Man.
But she's upset about Terry's death - really she is! She says so over the page:
'Please tell me he didn't suffer,' I whispered. 'Say something that will banish the pictures I have in my mind of him sitting in that car with his limbs blown off, screaming as he burned to death.'
Or perhaps it was just the terrible, terrible writing.
I gave up when Patrick and Steve (Terry's replacement) were posing as fence menders to spy on someone, with Ingrid in the cunning undercover disguise of Woman Who Hires A Pony For An Afternoon Ride. I read the final chapter (of course) - I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but Terry's not dead after all. Hooray! He'd been kidnapped, but Ingrid, Patrick and Steve rescued him, before he killed the kidnapper to stop Patrick doing it and therefore ruining his chances of becoming a vicar. Patrick was so upset about this that he resigned from MI5 and the army to become an industrial spy/literary agent/wannabe vicar, with Ingrid in tow as his assistant/top-selling novelist. Terry got Patrick's old job. So everyone was happy (sort of). (Incidentally, all of this is from the first two and the final chapters of the book; God only knows what happened in the rest).
So with that incredibly silly book out of the way, I've started another mystery novel, which is so far going well - except for one small quibble. But that's for another day.
Sleeping was all I could manage to do these last few days. Even a game of Minesweeper exhausted me (and, not for the first time, made me glad those mines aren't real) but I felt well enough today to sit in the garden and read. So I picked a mystery novel, something not too challenging, so as not to tax my fevered brain; this was a mistake. I have never hated a heroine so quickly and with such vehemence before.
The idea was that this woman, Ingrid, and her husband, Patrick, work together in a top-secret division of MI5, and they were called on to solve the murder of Terry, one of their colleagues. So far, so good. But Ingrid is not a career spy at all... no, she's a top-selling novelist (of such titles as Three Bells for the Cat). And Patrick? Patrick is a soldier (who lost a leg in the Falklands conflict) turned spy, who is contemplating one day becoming a vicar like his father, while in the meantime acting as Ingrid's agent. Patrick and Ingrid were married for ten years before divorcing, then remarrying four years later. They now have an infant son, who is cared for by a live-in nanny, whom they have made to sign the Official Secrets Act, so they can discuss their work with her.
I don't know quite what it was about Ingrid that made me hate her. I can put up with a great deal of preposterousness, so the improbable family life of Ingrid and Patrick shouldn't necessarily be a turn-off. Perhaps it was because she introduced herself as "Ingrid Langley, the novelist". Perhaps it was because Ingrid and Patrick were so spectacularly humourless - their job is serious, certainly, but they cross the line into sanctimony quite early on ('It's a bit quaint these days... dying for people,' Steve said. 'Then you'll find Patrick quaint,' I said. 'Horribly quaint.'). Perhaps it was because Ingrid was telling the story in the first person and I just didn't like her attitude. This is what happens after Terry's funeral: as they come home, the phone is ringing. Patrick answers it, Ingrid stops to read a note left by the nanny, then tells the reader:
I had a lot of work to do. At last I had completed Echoes of Murder, my latest novel, in rough, and could now go ahead with the final draft. (No one yet has talked me into buying a word processor.) I was hoping to finish this in time to be able to accept an invitation to watch the commencement of filming of the screen adaptation of another novel, as yet only published in the States, A Man Called Céleste, which had unfortunately been retitled The Immortality Man.
But she's upset about Terry's death - really she is! She says so over the page:
'Please tell me he didn't suffer,' I whispered. 'Say something that will banish the pictures I have in my mind of him sitting in that car with his limbs blown off, screaming as he burned to death.'
Or perhaps it was just the terrible, terrible writing.
I gave up when Patrick and Steve (Terry's replacement) were posing as fence menders to spy on someone, with Ingrid in the cunning undercover disguise of Woman Who Hires A Pony For An Afternoon Ride. I read the final chapter (of course) - I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but Terry's not dead after all. Hooray! He'd been kidnapped, but Ingrid, Patrick and Steve rescued him, before he killed the kidnapper to stop Patrick doing it and therefore ruining his chances of becoming a vicar. Patrick was so upset about this that he resigned from MI5 and the army to become an industrial spy/literary agent/wannabe vicar, with Ingrid in tow as his assistant/top-selling novelist. Terry got Patrick's old job. So everyone was happy (sort of). (Incidentally, all of this is from the first two and the final chapters of the book; God only knows what happened in the rest).
So with that incredibly silly book out of the way, I've started another mystery novel, which is so far going well - except for one small quibble. But that's for another day.
