In the bleak midwinter (or dreary midautumn) - watch a British TV series!

[Foyle's War - one of the best!]

Yesterday I posted this update on my Facebook page:

During the months when it's too cold to walk my little dogs, I ride an exercise bike planted in front of my TV. I love watching long British TV series while I pedal: Upstairs, Downstairs, Doc Martin, As Time Goes By. I just finished Foyle's War. Any suggestions for what I should watch next?

The response was amazing - more than 70 comments to date. I decided to make a list for future reference, and I thought you might like to see it too.

First, to keep the list focused, I weeded out Irish, Australian, and American productions as well as stand-alone films, though some good ones were recommended. Then I added links for all the series that made the cut. As I was doing this, I remembered more UK series I've enjoyed--Midsomer Murders, Poirot, Miss Marple, the House of Cards trilogy with Ian Richardson, The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, Fawlty Towers (of course), Inspector Morse, Cadfael ... and the names keep coming.

Here are the British TV series my Facebook pals recommended. Ones I've watched and enjoyed are in bold.

Seven friends recommended Call the Midwife. I started watching once but forgot to continue. Tonight I re-watched the first episode, and this time I'll persist. It won't be hard. I read Jennifer Worth's first book last year and enjoyed it very much (see my review here).

Four friends recommended Prime Suspect. Yes! One of my all-time favorites. Helen Mirren is fantastic.

Three each suggested Lark Rise to Candleford, Miranda, and Rev. Winter in Illinois is long. I'm glad to have these to look forward to.

Two each mentioned Ballykissangel, The Bletchley Circle, Broadchurch, Downton Abbey, Dr Who, The Inbetweeners, Inspector Lewis, Luther, Monarch of the Glen, and Sherlock. I watched the first episode of The Bletchley Circle tonight. A bit grisly in places, but promising.

These made the list too:

At Home with the Braithwaites, A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Black Adder, Bleak House, Brideshead Revisited, Cranford, Father Brown, The Grand, The House of Eliott, Hustle, Inspector George Gently, Jeeves & Wooster, Kingdom, Land Girls, Little Dorrit, Lovejoy, Misfits, Mr Bean, New Tricks, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Our Mutual Friend, Parade’s End, The Promise, Rosemary & Thyme, Rumpole of the Bailey, The Sandbaggers, Seven Up (a film series, really, but close enough), Sharpe, To the Manor Born, The Tudors, Vera, The Vicar of Dibley, The White Queen, Wives & Daughters, A Year in Provence.

And then there are the wonderful Adam Dalgleish series starring Roy Marsden, based on mysteries by P.D. James, and the Inspector Lynley series based on Elizabeth George's sprawling novels, and ... well, there are just too many to name. They almost make me want to ride my stationary bike--or at least sit in the recliner in front of the TV.

Opposites attract - Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth

22nd Agatha, 2011

26th Hamish, 2011

Agatha Raisin is one of my favorite fictional sleuths (read my Books & Culture online review of her just-published adventure, As the Pig Turns, here).

A close second is Hamish Macbeth, a doughty if lazy policeman from the Scottish Highlands whose 26th story, Death of a Chimney Sweep, was published in February.

Both Agatha and Hamish are the creations of M.C. Beaton, author of maybe 100 books in addition to the nearly 50 in these two series (I apparently vastly underestimated her output in my B&C article; check out the scary-long list here).

Beaton, one of many pen names used by Marion Chesney, was born in Glasgow, Scotland, some two or three hundred miles south of Hamish Macbeth's fictional town, Lochdubh, in the real county of Sutherland. Now 75, she divides her time between Paris and the English Cotswolds, where Agatha Raisin holds forth in the fictional town of Carsely. If you get the feeling Beaton knows the eccentric characters who people her mysteries - well, she probably does.

If you're already a fan of Agatha or Hamish, you know that Beaton's mysteries are gentle, funny, relaxing, and delightfully anti-authoritarian. And yet, apart from their unorthodox methods of crime-solving, Agatha and Hamish could not be more different from one another:

• Agatha comes from a dysfunctional family; Hamish's family is warm and supportive.
• Agatha has few friends; Hamish is a friend to his whole village.
• Agatha has extremely poor people skills; Hamish spends much of his time schmoozing with villagers.
• Agatha is ambitious; Hamish is lazy.
• Agatha takes credit for others' work; Hamish lets others take credit for his work.
• Agatha funds village projects (but earns no love); Hamish is known as a moocher (but they love him anyway).
• Agatha often blunders her way to solving a crime; Hamish's skills are based on hearsay, deduction, and chutzpah.
• Agatha is short and stout; Hamish is tall and lanky.
• Agatha is an amateur (who gains expertise along the way); Hamish is a professional.
• Agatha has cats; Hamish has dogs.
• Agatha's love life would improve if she were less pushy; Hamish's would improve if he were more assertive.
• Agatha is comically fussy about her appearance; Hamish is comically negligent of his.

But just because Agatha and Hamish are polar opposites does not mean they attract different sets of readers. If you like one series, I can almost guarantee you'll like the other.

Which leads me to wonder - will Agatha and Hamish ever meet? Could they stand being in the same room? Could they work on a case together? And if they did, would their chief nemeses, Detective Chief Inspectors Wilkes and Blair, go completely berserk?

THE DOG WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD by Alexander McCall Smith

When I was in high school, Frito-Lay introduced a slogan that became famous: "Betcha can't eat just one." I took that as a challenge, an easy bet to win since I didn't care for Fritos.

However, I cannot - cannot - read just one book a year by Alexander McCall Smith, and I'm so glad I don't have to. This year saw the release (in the U.S., which tends to lag) of The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, 12) and The Dog Who Came In from the Cold (Corduroy Mansions Series, 2). Today my public library, bless them, ordered The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie Series, 8), slated for December.

I have the first hold on the first copy received.

The Corduroy Mansions series, like the earlier and ongoing (in the U.K.) 44 Scotland Street Series, are serial novels à la Dickens, but delivered at a far more frenetic pace. The Dog Who Came In from the Cold's 78 very short chapters began life as an online novel  (you can read its sequel here, at the Telegraph website) and were then turned into a book. As you read, you get the feeling that McCall Smith has no idea what his characters are going to do next, and the book has nothing resembling a linear plot. It doesn't matter. Surprises are good. And you know everything will more or less come together by the last page.

Which is amazing, considering all the interwoven stories centering on Corduroy Mansions, a yet-to-be-rehabbed apartment building in Pimlico, central London.

• Should William French, wine merchant, allow MI6 (the British Secret Intelligence Service) to use his Pimlico terrier ("an unusual breed obtained through the judicious crossing of an Airedale with a Border Collie, and perhaps just a touch of something else about which the breeders themselves were now hazy"), Freddie de la Hay, as a spy?
• Can Caroline and James, art history students, find happiness without germs?
• Will Dee, owner of the Pimlico Vitamin and Supplement Agency and proponent of colonic irrigation, lose all her money if she invests in an attractive marketing scheme?
• Can Barbara Ragg and Rupert Porter, literary agents, resolve their dispute over an inherited apartment?
• Can Berthea Snark, psychiatrist, stop her loony brother Terence Moongrove from making a very foolish decision?
• Is an abominable snowman really shopping at Fortnum and Mason?

If it sounds confusing, it isn't. McCall Smith somehow keeps you anchored, and by the time quite a few of the characters gather at William's place for a party, you love them all - just as McCall Smith does - and maybe you even feel a little more love for some of your odder family members.

[William] looked down at Freddie de la Hay, who was lying in a corner, one eye open, watching the human comedy, or that small part of it that was playing out in the room. Dear Freddie, loyal Freddie; for whom there were no great existential questions because he knew at all times, and in all places, what he had to do - which was to do William's bidding and make him happy. That was Freddie's world-view, his Weltanschauung, it it was as good as any world-view, thought William. We had to love somebody, and we had to want the best for that person. Freddie knew as much because it was in his nature to do so.

Part of the delight of reading McCall Smith, who is a retired bioethicist, is that he scatters such observations throughout his stories: his characters are constantly pondering the human condition. But I don't read these books for their ethical weight. I read them because the characters are wildly eccentric and lovable, because the situations they get into are hilariously improbable, and because - at the end of a tiring day - McCall Smith makes me smile.

MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND by Helen Simonson

"This is the book I've been looking for," I said to my friend Carol at a book group last night. "I'm so tired of books where the characters are miserable at the beginning, think a great deal, and are equally miserable at the end. Not that I want sappy sweet books..."

"You want books that are redemptive," Carol said.

That's exactly right. Happy books featuring genuinely good people, like D.L. Smith's The Miracles of Santo Fico; gritty books whose protagonists take on evil and win, like Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch detective stories; or even deeply ambiguous books whose seriously flawed characters turn out to have a good side after all, like Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge. What I don't want to do is waste my time with any book that goes nowhere or, worse, leaves me depressed and anxious. If I want to feel suicidal, I can watch the news.

I loved Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.

The book is very redemptive, though if I told you exactly what I mean by that I'd give away the plot. It is also a charming romance. Characters fall in and out of love; marriage proposals are made, accepted, postponed, and turned down. The necessary complications arise because of misunderstandings (or downright nastiness) between races, nationalities, religions, generations, sexes, classes, and people with varying levels of pretentiousness. The love of money and possessions triggers plenty of havoc.

Fortunately, this is a comic novel, not grim realism. The author, a native of England who has lived in the U.S. for 20 years, enjoys poking fun at stuffy old Brits (aren't they almost extinct?) and brash Americans (thriving, alas).

While Major Pettigrew, 68, and especially the quietly indomitable Mrs. Ali, 58, are well-developed characters, many members of the supporting cast are hilarious caricatures - the vicar's dreadful wife, Daisy; the Major's narcissistic son, Roger; Mrs. Ali's scowling religious nephew, Abdul Wahid; the ecologically minded but fashion challenged neighbor, Alice;  Lord Dagenham, who brings bankers to the manor to shoot at farm-raised ducks... Well, all of Helen Simonson's characters, right down to walk-on parts like the rule-obsessed lady at the tea-and-cakes kiosk, are wryly amusing.

To be sure, the course of Major Pettigrew's romance does not run smooth. Potentially derailing subplots abound: an American real estate developer wants to turn Edgecombe St. Mary into a haven for displaced minor nobility. The Major and his sister-in-law disagree about who should inherit the deceased brother's valuable gun. A single mother confronts her child's father. The yearly club dance finds yet another way to showcase its planner's ignorance and bad taste. A love affair seems to die even before it gets properly started. Hey, this is a romance - we can hardly expect things to be easy.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is funny, it's heartwarming, it's even wise. And in the end, when the main characters get what's coming to them (for good or for ill), I'm betting most readers will chuckle and cheer and say to their friends, "Here's a book you've got to read."

_____________________________________

When Googling for a picture of the book jacket to include with this post, I discovered that Alexander McCall Smith reviewed this book in the New York Times (March 3, 2010). His review is excellent, but even if you don't feel like reading it right now, click on this link to see the illustration. 

TO FETCH A THIEF by Spencer Quinn

If you've already discovered Spencer Quinn's Chet and Bernie Mysteries (Dog On It, Thereby Hangs a Tail), all I need to do here is point out - in case you missed it - that the third book, To Fetch a Thief, was published last September and is now available in hardcover, Kindle edition, audio CD, and Audible audio download, and is probably also at your public library. You'll have to wait until July for the paperback, though.

If you haven't yet met Chet and Bernie, allow me to introduce you. Bernie Little is founder and part-owner (with his ex-wife) of the Little Detective Agency, and Chet is his partner. This confuses some of his potential clients, since Chet is a very large dog of indeterminate breed. Bernie always assures the dubious that Chet was top of his class at the police dog training school, though this is not, strictly speaking, accurate. Chet explains:

I'd done pretty well in K-9 school, up until the very last day. The only thing left had been the leaping test. And leaping is just about my very best thing. Then came some confusion. Was a cat involved? And blood? I ended up flunking out, but that was how Bernie and I got together, so it worked out great.

Yes, gentle reader, Chet narrates the whole series. Don't think, though, that it in any way resembles Christmas letters you may have received from addled friends' family pets. As Stephen King blurbs on the back cover: "Spencer Quinn speaks two languages - suspense and dog - fluently."

Here are 10 reasons you might want to get acquainted with Chet and Bernie:

1. You've overdosed on bleak literary novels and want to read something funny for a change.
2. You're a fan of Peter Abrahams, whom Stephen King calls his "favorite American suspense novelist." (Spencer Quinn is Peter Abrahams' pseudonym.)
3. You live with a dog and would like to know how he or she thinks.
4. You need an antidote for seasonal affective disorder. Chet and Bernie live in an unnamed Southwestern state whose temperatures range from warm to hot.
5. You can't resist dogs who are bloggers (see Chet's blog here).
6. You'd like to season your regular hardboiled detective story diet with a mystery that's softboiled or possibly even scrambled.
7. Nevertheless, you demand intelligent plots and clever dialogue.
8. You like detectives who are not only smart but also nice. Even if clueless about their finances.
9. You figure that any books Books and Culture editor John Wilson likes must be worth reading (hey, he even included two Chet and Bernie titles in his list of 2010 favorites!).
10. You want to get a head start so you're ready to read book 4 in the series, The Dog Who Knew Too Much, when it's published in September. 

Any of these reasons work for me. And I think To Fetch a Thief is Spencer Quinn's best yet - probably because I really like elephants.

CORDUROY MANSIONS by Alexander McCall Smith

The cast of characters is what makes the first book in Alexander McCall Smith's new series, Corduroy Mansions, compulsively readable.

William, a middle-aged wine merchant, is trying to figure out how to get his rude, freeloading son, Eddie, to move out and get his own apartment. Dee, who works at a vitamin shop, has offered to give her young male colleague a colonic irrigation. James, an art student, is having a sexual identity crisis - he thinks he might be straight. Oedipus Snark, a lazy, unprincipled Member of Parliament, is so loathsome that his personal assistant Jenny, his girlfriend Barbara, and even his mother, Berthea, can't stand him. The one entirely sane individual in the book is Freddie de la Hay, a Pimlico terrier (a breed invented to order) - though he is clearly not the sweet puppy pictured on the U.S. book jacket.

In 100 short chapters, the characters get into and out of hilarious predicaments, ruminating as they go. "Ugliness can be beautiful," says James in a typical aside. "Anything can be beautiful. And maybe that's what a certain sort of artist is trying to do: he - or she, of course - is trying to open our eyes to a beauty we would not otherwise see." Surely that is what McCall Smith is trying to do: he loves his flawed characters, and after spending an hour or two enjoying his gentle humor, one sees one's friends and neighbors with kinder eyes.

Don't expect tight plotting, though. McCall Smith wrote this book for The Telegraph as a genuine serial novel - a chapter a day, five days a week, for six months (this is also how he wrote the 44 Scotland Street series for The Scotsman) - and he clearly did not start out with any particular destination in mind. Loose ends abound, but they aren't a problem. We know he'll be back next year to tie some of them up and to leave still more hanging.

Indeed, the second book in this series, The Dog Who Came In from the Cold, has already been published in the U.K., and the third book's first installment will soon appear. This brings McCall Smith's 2009-2010 literary output up to seven and a fraction books (well, he had to do something during the six months when he wasn't writing Corduroy Mansions books). According to a 2007 Associated Press-Ipsos poll, the typical American claims to read about four books a year. That's how many books Alexander McCall Smith writes.