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, and 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.

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.

The Real Charlotte IV

Francie is increasingly unhappy with her aunt and uncle and their children when they are settled in Bray, a seaside town. Her aunt is trying to run the house on even less money, and Francie's small income has diminished due to her investments going down. Roddy Lambert comes to Bray to pay her a visit and he can see how miserable she is. He has always been attracted to her as she is so pretty and when she was a little younger, she used to flirt with him. Now she's older and not so taken with him, but she is leading such a dreary life, that when he asks her to marry him, she accepts. They get married quietly and go to Paris. Roddy is not well off. He has his job and Lucy had a modest income but that's only settled on him for life. But he has been "borrowing" bits of money from the rents of the Dysarts' tenants, and hoping he can pay it back before they find out. Francie is grateful to Roddy for his affection but she is not in love with him and finds him a bit boring. Then Sir Benjamin Dysart dies, and Roddy has to hurry back to Ireland. He and Francie go to see Charlotte, and Charlotte makes a pretence of making up her quarrel with her cousin. Francie had said to her angrily that she could keep herself without getting married but now she's married Roddy mostly to have a secure home. She is not that happy back in Lismoyle. Roddy is good to her but she finds him dull. Roddy himself is not very happy. He has been having financial problems since he's had delays with his wife's small fortune being transferred to him... and he has now married a wife who has only a tiny income and has debts of her own. He has been filching money from the estate funds, and now that Christopher has inherited the estate and come home, he may be found out before he has time to put things right. Charlotte knows Roddy well as she used to work with him when he came as assistant to her father, and she knows he is not all that honest. She snoops around and finds evidence of his hiding money. She writes to Christopher to tell him that his agent has been cheating. Gerald Hawkins is back in Lismoyle and he gets involved with Franice again. She is tempted by him, but while she is not happy with Roddy, she knows how fickle Hawkins is. He asks her to run away with him, telling her that he can support her. Christopher talks to Francie and tells her that if Roddy pays back what he owes to the estate he won't take it any further. Meanwhile, Roddy who had been a bit romantic with Charlotte in her younger days, goes to her and asks her for help. he tells her that he has debts and is in despair how to pay them and is in danger of losing his job. He asks if she can lend him some money. Charlotte slams him down immediately, telling him she won't lend him anything and that he has gotten himself into this mess. He wonders what on earth he can do, and isn't aware that Francie is on the point of leaving him. She has told Hawkins that she can't leave Roddy when he is in trouble, but she is tempted. She and he are out riding, when they pass a funeral. It is Julia Duffy who has died in the asylum. They hold back their horses to let the funeral pass, but a mourner, who is keening, flings her arms about and cries out, loudly, and the sudden movement spooks Francie's horse. She is thrown on her head on the road, and is killed.

Conor Cruise O'Brien II

During his career in the Civil service, Conor became increasingly sceptical about the position taken on the North by the Dublin governments. He was involved in producing propaganda to try and persuade the British government to hand over the 6 Northern counties to the Irish state. He realised however that most Southern Irish knew little of the north and did not really want partition to end.. as it would mean that a large number of ferociously anti Irish, anti Catholic Protestant Unionists would become Irish citizens and that would change the culture of the southern Irish state. So while the public claimed to want an end to partition, the truth was that they were very ambivalent about it. He married a girl from Northern Ireland and he made an effort to get to know Unionists, and he could see their point of view. While they were bigoted and treated Catholics in the North harshly, there was some truth in their belief that "Home Rule would be Rome Rule" as Southern Ireland was very much dominated by the Catholic church. Conor's first marriage ended in divorce which was unheard of in Ireland. When he left the Civil service, after the Katanga issue, he became a lecturer at various universities abroad, in Africa and in the USA. He became a Labour party activist and stood for election in the 1970s. He became a minister in the Coalition government in 1973. He returned to Ireland to live, and used his time as a minister to attack the IRA and to try to persuade the public to re evaluate their attitudes to Northern Ireland and Partition. Conor lost his seat at the General Election in 1977, and got a job as Editor of the Observer, in London. He commuted for a few years and then gave up politics in Ireland entirely. He worked as a journalist and wrote books including one on Israel, The Seige, and one on Edmund Burke. He was not always popular in Ireland due to his dislike of extreme nationalism and his sympathy with Unionism.

Conor Cruise O' Brien

I hope to write something on Conor Cruise O'Brien, who was a well known writer, playwright, lecturer and politican in Ireland. He died some years ago. He was an unusual man who did not fit into the Ireland of De Valera that he grew up in. He was born in 1917. His father was a journalist and his mother was one of the Sheehy family who were well known Home Ruler politicans and prominent figures in Dublin Nationalist society. Conor's father died when he was a child, and had wanted him to go to a Protestant school, as he himself was an agnostic. Conor was sent to a Protestant school and grew up to be sceptical about religion and to question the heavy depressing Catholic ethos of the Irish state. He next went to Trinity College and then into the Irish civil service where he looked like he was going to have a brilliant career. I will write some more about him later.

The Real Charlotte Part III

Francie is invited to stay at Bruff for a few days, and she is very nervous. Christopher forgives her gaffes but the ladies of the party don't like her at all and think she is common and stupid. She embarks on a flirtation with Gerald Hawkins, who is a soldier - and who plays around with her with no intention of marrying a penniless girl. Lady Dysart and the other women of the party, except for Pamela, Lady Dysart's sweet natured daughter, are chilly with her. She goes bicycle riding and lets young men flirt with her and can't seem to stop herself. She likes Christopher but is uneasily aware that he will not find her all that interesting or suitable if he gets to know her better.. she's not up to his weight. She goes boating and she and Roddy Lambert who is of the party are almost drowned. Charlotte begins to get annoyed with her young cousin. She seems to get into scrapes continually and to engage in vulgar behaviour. Moreover, she can see that Roddy is growing too fond of Francie, and she is jealous, because she still has feelings for him. Although he is married, he and Francie flirt and reminisce over when they knew each other in Dublin. Lucy Lambert, his wife, is getting uneasy. Francie is in love with Gerald Hawkins and wants to marry him but he shies away, as he does not want to get tied down with her. Charlotte is more and more irritated by her, feeling that she is throwing away her chances of becoming Lady Dysart, for the sake of a flirtation with Hawkins. Charlotte is eager to increase her land, and manages to get hold of a farm rented by Julia Duffy. Julia is elderly and poor and not able to manage the farm. She is bedridden much of the time and suffering from depression. Charlotte tells Roddy Lambert that if she had the farm, she would use it for breeding horses and would make money out of it, but Julia is just letting it go to rack and ruin. She gets the tenancy, and Julia breaks down and ends up in the local asylum, having lost her health, her mind and her social status. Charlotte moves into the farm, but her servants dont like it as it is further away from town than her other home.. and they are lonely. There is nothing to do but look after Charlotte's collection of cats whom she adores. Charlotte is getting more and more annoyed with Francie, and she tells Lucy Lambert that she thinks Francie is flirting with Roddy and that Lucy should watch out for her. She gives her letters between the 2 which indicate a heavy flirtation... and Lucy, who is never in good health, gets upset and has a heart attack. Charlotte was supposed to be Lucy's best friend, but she is not desperately upset by her death. Roddy feels guilty that he was often neglectful of his wife and goes to Charlotte for consolation. Francie leaves Lismoyle and goes back to Dublin and her Aunt and Uncle are moving out to the seaside, to find a cheaper place to live. She is fond of them, but finds life with them increasingly miserable but she doesn't have enough money to live on her own.

The Real Charlotte II

Charlotte invites Francie to Tally Ho Lodge her home, for a visit.. because her old aunt had wished it. However she is jealous of her cousin, who is young and fresh and charming. She does have ideas though of using Francie.. She can see that the girl has good looks and attracts men, and that it might well be possible to make a match for her with one of the local gentry. Christopher Dysart son of Sir Benjamin, is a gentle likable young man whose mother wants to get him married and if Charlotte were to bring off a marriage, her cousin would be one day "Lady Dysart of Bruff" and an important figure in local society in Lismoyle, and Francie would owe it to her that she had achieved this rank. Francie has been living with her cousins, in Dublin in a shabby neighbourhood. She has a small income of her own but it is not enough to keep her. Her uncle Robert is not making much money and the family are always on the verge of having to move to an even more downmarket neighbourhood. She is not comfortable with the upper classes in Lismoyle, used as she is to mixing only with her uncle's family and their social equals in Dublin. She likes to flirt and frequently gets things wrong, when mixing socially. She is aware that the Dysarts' circle look down on her for being ill educated and inexperienced in "good society". Christopher Dysart however can't help being strongly attracted to her. Her beauty and naievety please him and he's willing to overlook her lack of education.