A positively bursting new newsletter just went out to informed insiders, which means there’s also a new old newsletter in the archive.
Rich and rewarding as it is, it’s not fresh news, so why not sign up to get the newsletters as soon as they hatch?
The subtly-titled mottle of misdirection and missed detection returns to where it all started ten mysteries ago when none other than Anty’s friendly rival Inspector Wittersham is the only suspect in a locked-room murder in the ancient earldom of Fray.
Of course Anty doesn’t believe for a second that Inspector Wittersham murdered a prisoner locked in a cell to which only he had the key, but the more twists and secrets and hidden treasure he digs up, the more evidence he finds that proves Wittersham guilty.
To save his friend, Anty must draw on his judgemental mum, woolly valet, a constable named Constable, a goat of dubious loyalties, endless eccentrics, and his own depths of wit and anecdote as he delves deeply into the history of medieval England and the dark mysteries of his own family.
There’s another new newsletter in the archive.
I say new, but it’s new rather in the way a washing up liquid is new and improved, which is to say not at all. This number dates back to April and even then it was meant to be the February edition, delayed and then delayed again while powers greater than I struggled and ultimately succeeded in keeping the audiobook of Mystery and Malice aboard RMS Ballast from appearing on Audible.
But the little vessel fought bravely back with a fearless strategy of wandering blindly and wondering idly, waiting for something to happen. Eventually, we abandoned the distributor and signed up with another and, three weeks later, the audiobook of Mystery and Malice aboard RMS Ballast is available on all platforms.
To find your favourite among them, have a click…
There’s a new newsletter, finally, in the archives, which means that the latest number has been sent out to subscribers after an unprecedented but unsurprising delay while we meditated and sacrificed a perfectly good bottle of Merlot and a night’s sleep in supplication to the sacred, secret rites by which an audiobook somehow makes it onto Audible.
Which is not to say that Mystery and Malice aboard RMS Ballast has been anointed after fully eight weeks, we just got tired of waiting, and also recalled that last time we whinged in print about Audible looking at the horizon and pretending not to see us Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling was made available the next day. Maybe it’ll work again.
The good news is that the eighth Anty Boisjoly audiobook, the one in which Tim Bruce finally gets to do his pirate voice, parrot and all, is available everywhere that isn’t Audible.
On Valentine’s Day, 1975 at the age of 93, PG Wodehouse had the best of all possible ends.
He passed away surrounded by the notes for what would be the last but was at the time his next Blandings novel. It was never completed, at least not in the traditional sense.
I cherish this book, though. Not because it’s the best Wodehouse nor even the best Blandings (that would be Leave it to Psmith, 1923) but because it’s not — it’s something more and it’s something else, because it’s a snapshot of the master at work and because of the affectionate form in which it was eventually published.
The story is a warmly familiar reunion of the Blandings ensemble and devices, slightly rearranged for a new narrative toot. Lord Emsworth is immediately on hand to be oppressed by a sister (Florence, in this case) with particular respect to the Empress of Blandings whose portrait His Lordship is still trying to have painted. A niece has been confined to Blandings to keep her from the penniless artist she loves who is, obviously, introduced into the castle by Galahad in the guise of a gifted and passionate painter of pigs.
Then, just as the machinations are assembled and cranked up to speed, they hit the wall. Very suddenly and very poignantly the story stops and so does PG Wodehouse.
Taking the wise and obvious and only course, the publishers elected not to engage another writer to try to finish the book. Instead, Wodehouse biographer and scholar Richard Usborne collated the considerable notes, transcriptions, and annotations, and employed them to edit that which Wodehouse had completed into what he estimates to be the first sixteen of an eventual twenty-two chapters, and essay a very informed and informal guess at how the story might have played out.
This is borne out in the next section, composed of selected notes, transcribed, and marking the point at which Sunset at Blandings becomes more of an artefact for the enthusiast.
This is followed, in descending order of interest to even the enthusiast, with speculative floor and grounds plans of Blandings Castle, predicated on rather a lot of pedantic study and preceded by the observation that Wodehouse himself would have found the exercise a bewildering use of time.
True to the spotting swotting in which Usborne clearly delights, next stop is the trains. Every express, omnibus, and milk train that Wodehouse ever sent between London and Blandings is painstakingly inspected in an effort to isolate a clue to the location of the real Blandings. It doesn’t, for the same reason that a careful analysis of the work of J. M. Barrie wouldn’t render up directions to the real Neverland, but these fanciful memories and minutiae, along with the extensive footnotes, serve as happy vignettes of Blandings on rotation — a way to revisit the old place without wearing out our welcome.
Throughout, Usborne takes sharp pains to demonstrate that and how Sunset at Blandings would have been a better book had Wodehouse only been allowed to complete it. This is self-evident, but I was surprised at the degree of detail that remained undecided, and the amount of writing Wodehouse had done that he was going to have to change. I was much more surprised, though, by the near total absence of prose notes. Very clearly, Wodehouse was going to polish the text on the second pass, but there’s no denying that what we have so far is composed mainly of recycled material and flat drafting.
In fact the best line not written is given to, of all characters, Bertie Wooster, in a tantalising alternate plot in which, finally, he and Jeeves would have visited Blandings,
“Will you marry me? Not immediately of course. When we have had time to assemble a clergyman or two.”
So it’s no great stretch to imagine that Plumb’s final act in this world was to form one last, laughing, lyrical line, and then pass along with a smile on his face. We don’t get to read it, though, and that’s only right — the absence of an ending to Sunset at Blandings is the perfect poetic ending for its architect — of course Blandings doesn’t end. Blandings can’t end.
Sunset at Blandings isn’t a great book but it’s a memorable, important, linchpin — it’s where the circle joins.
It’s tempting to wonder if Wodehouse suspected this might be the ultimate role of this book, in light of the most meaningful line that did make it into the draft, spoken by Galahad,
“The great thing about Blandings is that it never changes.”
The Christmas newsletter has entered the archive, finally, in time to make room for the blockbuster January edition, overflowing with exclusives, news, cartoons, and cast lists for subscriber insiders.
Teddy Quillfeather’s second outing is finally out on February 14th.
Teddy’s off to the races in this multi-layered multiplier mystery of dark horses and dodgy courses, pawky jockeys, unstable stables, impossible odds, crooked bookies, and a track-wide conspiracy to deny the punter an even chance. That’s more than enough to invite a counter-con from Teddy, but when the family paddock is implicated in race-fixing, she does what she does best when the odds go against her — she raises the stakes.
The official census is still being compiled, but Frauds on Favourite is almost certainly the largest cast yet assembled under a single Boisjoly/Quillfeather banner, even without including the horses and chickens, and there are definitely record numbers of horses and chickens.
The official pre-Christmas hype edition of the newsletter (aka; November) is now in the newsletter archive, in a convient link just under the form you can use to sign up to get the newsletters as they come off the press.
The Christmas number has just been sent out to subscribers, and it includes a seasonal parody cartoon and a cast list for The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning, as mere support matter for the meat of the mail, a cover reveal of the next Teddy Quillfeather.
Literally the day after I sent out a newsletter passive-aggressively whingeing about Audible’s delay in releasing Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling, Audible released Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling. It’s nice to know they’re listening.
The no-news newsletter makes this newsworthy, but Anty Boisjoly’s seventh stumper has been on most platforms for weeks, for example…
…and there’s a good chance that it’s on your library app.
Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling is Anty’s twistiest mysteriest manor house mystery in history, and it has the largest cast of characters that Tim Bruce has heretofore given voice. Of course it’s another tour de force from Tim, helped only slightly by a cast list, a redacted version of which is in the September newsletter, already available for download in the archive.
While there, why not take the opportunity to subscribe to the newsletter — you’ll immediately get the current issue, which includes a cast list of the first Anty Boisjoly mystery, The Case of the Canterfell Codicil, soon followed by the much-anticipated Christmas edition, featuring two exclusive cartoons and a cover reveal.
The newsletter archive has another entry and the September number introduces a new feature.
The audiobook version of Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling has been released (almost everywhere — Audible, presumably, is still playing it backwards, listening for subversive messages) in which the action unfolds in a richly and eccentrically populated Cotswolds manor house, and yet Voice-of-Anty Tim Bruce manages to track and trace all the accents and attitudes.
This is because Tim is a professional — a professional who has an annotated text and a cast list provided by the author who, it is widely rumoured, tends to over-share. A clever reader suggested that listeners might appreciate having a similar leg-up, and that the cast list be made available to newsletter subscribers.
Which is the new feature that you’ll find now in the latest newsletter added to the archive. Subscribers know this already, and they’ll also be getting the November newsletter featuring a custom-written cast list of the first Anty Boisjoly, The Case of the Canterfell Codicil, along with new cartoons and exclusive announcements.