Last of Summer

This is one of Kate O'Brien's novels that I have not been able to get a copy of. I did read it some years ago. It is set in rural Ireland, just before World War II breaks out. The Kernahan family live a quiet life in a country village. They are dominated by Hannah, mother of the family. Angele Maury turns up to visit them. She is their cousin. Her father left Ireland years ago and married a French girl. Angele is an actress. Hannah is clearly not pleased to see her and does not like the way that her two sons are both attracted to their cousin. She like a lot of Irish people at the time, does not want to think about the possibility of war. She wants Ireland to remain neutral and to keep out of world problems. Angele being French is ready to go to war with the Germans. She wants to go back to France as soon as possible, to take her part in the conflict. Hannah is annoyed when her sons quarrel over Angele, and when they want to join up and fight the Nazis. But they go ahead anyway. Angele leaves and goes back home.

As Music and Splendour By Kate O'Brien

This is one of Kate O'Brien's last novels. It was published in 1958 and afterwards she worked on another novel called Constancy, but only managed to write a few chapters. In her later years, she had poor health and also was a heavy drinker and it affected her work. She did not produce as much writing as might have been expected. The book is set in Victorian times, and is about 2 young Irish women who both have beautiful voices. As young girls, Rose and Claire are offered a chance to train as opera singers. They are not from well off families, both are simple Irish country girls. But the chance of being successful singers is a great thing for both of them, as it means they will be able to earn a good living. As they grow up they begin to live abroad, mostly in Italy. They embark on love affairs. Rose has several male lovers and Clare discovers that she prefers women and has a passionate affair with another singer Luisa. The book does not have much plot but it is readable. Both girls are Catholics but they make their own decisions about what sexual relationships they want to have. The book is more open about lesbianism than her other works.. many of which were banned in Ireland.

Two Stories

I have 2 stories available on Amazon. Rough Music, a band story about a country rock band, set in the 1970s, and Beds and Blue Jeans, a story set in America a little before Covid, about a young couple in Nashville, trying to make their relationship work. Written by Nadine Sutton

The Kitten Lady

Its Kitten season again and Hannah is busy rescuing newborns who need care. And Ferguson her orange cat who has kidney problems, is having a birthday. Happy birthday to Ferguson who is now 5. You can find her on social media.

Piece of Justice Part III

Fran is thankful for her narrow escape from being the third biographer who was killed off. Imogen and Fran decide to go to visit old Mrs Evans, who was considered a quirky old lady who had settled into the Valley, learned Welsh and been well liked. Violet is now old and frail but in her youth, she was a mathematics student at Cambridge. But when Cambridge refused to give women degrees, there was a riot at the college and she was hurt in the fighting that went on... and her nose was broken. It upset her a lot, the refusal to accept women's degrees and the violence against those who protested. She left Cambridge without taking her degree and went back home. She married a young farmer from Wales, who was comfortably off and while she missed Cambridge, she had a good life as a farmer's wife. She learned to make quilts and she made the quilt with the mathematical pattern that Gideon copied and stole to pass off as his own research. He had felt guilty about it, and wanted to come clean but Janet wouldn't let him. Imogen approaches the college authorities and on the next degree day, she is awarded her degree and takes part in the graduation ceremony, which pleases her.

Piece of Justice II

Imogen does a litle snooping around and finds that she knows the sister of the biographer who died. He was called Mark Zephyr and Imogen was at school with his sister. She talks to her and finds that Mark died suddenly of meningitis. She also finds the nephew of May Swann and he tells her that he is worried about his aunt's disappearance and feels she would never have abandoned her work in mid project. Imogen decides to go to Wales, where Gideon spent the missing time in the 70's. Fran had gone away to try and find the village, but has not come back. Imogen worries. When she gets to Wales, she finds that it is a little village where she used to go for holidays in childhood. She drives there, and meets Gwenny, a farmer's daughter who works on the farm where the Quys used to stay. She tries to get some information on English people who live or have houses in the area. Then when she is walking, someone shoots her. She breaks her leg and the farmer's dog bites her. But she is looked after and finds that the young farmer who shot at her thought that she was a woman who has been pestering his family for some time. This woman had been chasing them up, trying to persuade them to sell her a quilt that's been in their family for a long time. She had even kidnapped the farmer's son, to try and scare them into giving up the quilt. But they held firm and hoped she had given up. Imogen is recovering from her broken leg and sees the famous quilt. It has a pattern that seems very unusual. She talks to the local police, and, spurred on by her inquiries, they search for Fran. They are amazed to find a body of a woman buried in the valley, but to Imogen's relief, it isn't Fran. She guesses that it is the body of May Swann. She contacts Cambridge and finds that Fran has returned safely..She gets a friend from college to drive her back to her home and tells Fran and her police friend Mike that she thinks there is something really weird and bad going on. Imogen has learned from Fran that Janet Summerfield, as well as being violent tempered, has a weight problem. Her weight has gone up and down quite drastically over the years. She does a bit of research and finds there is a drug that is now off the market but which could be used to help people lose weight quickly.. and that it is poisonous. It produces symptoms that are rather like meningitis and then causes death and it can be mixed into food. She wonders if this could have been used to kill Mark Zephyr. She happens to meet Janet Summerfield and finds that the woman is obviously unbalanced and she makes an incoherent rambling admission that she poisoned her husband. In addition, she learns that Fran has been invited to dinner by a college fellow who professes a passionate devotion to the college, and she's very worried. She gets the police to go round to his house and they stop Fran from eating anything and find that the dinner was poisoned with the drug that may have been used to kill Mark Zephyr and Gideon. The man, Meredith Bagadeuce, is arrested. He claims that he loves the college and will do anything to protect it. The police question Janet and she denies she made any confession, and says that Meredith was a friend of hers, who had the run of her house, so he might have had access to the drug which she kept for weight loss. Imogen contacts the Evans family who owned the quilt and learns that Mrs Evans, who made it is still alive, in a care home in Shrewsbury.

A Piece of Justice Part I

This is the second Imogen Quy novel. Imogen is a college nurse at a Cambridge college who occasionally solves a crime. She has a younger friend, Frances who rents a room from her, and is a graduate student. Frances is hard up and is offered a job, helping to write a biography of a mathematician, Gideon Summerfield, who is well known because he did some innovative work in middle age. He has died recently and a biography is being planned. Fran starts work on the biography and then finds that Janet, Gideon's widow, is interfering with her work. She also learns that 3 other writers had worked on the book before her, and is very startled when she finds that one of them died suddenly and another one, May Swann, has disappeared, leaving her flat and noone has seen her for some time. The first writer did just give up and go travelling. But Imogen feels nervous when she hears of this. Imogen and Fran learn a bit about Gideon through Imogen's friends, whom she knows through her hobby of making quilts. She is working on a new quilt and one of her friends tells her that she knew Gideon's mistress, Melanie, an older lady who has retired. Frances is surprised, as Gideon seemed very dull and she couldn't imagine there was any scandal in his life. But it turns out that he had had an on off affair with Melanie for years, and had other liaisons too, and his wife appeared to tolerate it. But she doesn't want anything about the mistresses to appear in the book. Fran finds when going through his papers that there is a gap of a month or so, during the 70s. He and his friends used to go away and rent a cottage for holidays, and spend the time, drinking, playing Scrabble and fooling around, but apparently, on this holiday, Gideon had a row with the others in his crowd, and left the cottage and disappeared for a few weeks.