Joyce McDonald
“The First Sir Percy” by Baroness Orczy
The First Sir Percy could be called The Laughing Cavalier, Part II because it takes up where the previous book leaves off in the highly addictive Scarlet Pimpernel series. The story teeters on the brink of disaster, as again, we wonder just who can we trust, and how in the devil is Diogenes going to get out of this trap, and again, should he? If you have read The Laughing Cavalier, don’t stop there. After all, you’ve already learned the Dutch, you know the characters, so you can sit back, relax, and enjoy The First Sir Percy.
“The Laughing Cavalier” by Baroness Orczy
The first of two prequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Laughing Cavalier is set in Holland in 1623. It tells the story of Percy Blake, a foreign adventurer and ancestor of the Scarlet Pimpernel who goes by the name Diogenes. Unlike The Scarlet Pimpernel, Diogenes has not yet established himself as a man of sterling character or irreproachable moral integrity. Some of the fun of The Laughing Cavalier is that one is uncertain whether he will wind up in jail or on the scaffold, and whether he just might deserve such a fate.
“Whose Body?” by Dorothy Sayers
Meet Peter Wimsey, an English lord with a penchant for solving sordid crimes. Mervyn Bunter, Wimsey’s valet, plays Dr. Watson to Lord Peter’s skewed Sherlock. What makes this a unique detective novel is that before the crime can be solved, the investigators must decide if a crime has been committed and, more importantly, who is this dead man to begin with? And what is he doing in someone else’s bathtub wearing only a pince nez?
“The Scarlet Pimpernel” by Baroness Orczy
In this first novel (but third in chronological order) of the Scarlet Pimpernel series, the question foremost in the reader’s mind is “Who is the Scarlet Pimpernel?” The plot involves an unintended betrayal by a loved one, a desperate flight into France to save more Aristos, and a daring charade to mislead an unscrupulous French henchman hot on the Pimpernel’s trail. To tell more would be to give away some of the delights of this novel.
“The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern” by Lilian Jackson Braun
Womanless, homeless and broke—this is the way Jim Qwilleran finds himself at the beginning of any early Cat Who… novel. In The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern Jim is richer only by the company of one cat who shares his interesting in solving crimes. He is older by six months. He has a job, albeit with a shaky future.
“The House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton
In spite of the fact that The House of Mirth was published in 1905, the truths that Wharton illustrates with Lily’s story feel strangely contemporary. What a working woman can take away from this story is a gladness that she can marry or not; that she can keep her friends or not; that she can join the social whirl or thumb her nose at it because she possesses an independence that Lily Bart was denied.
“The Cat Who Could Read Backwards” by Lilian Jackson Braun
Here we meet a slightly younger, much poorer Jim Qwilleran who has managed to work his way down the social ladder thanks to a few poor lifestyle choices. He is worlds away from Pickax’s celebrated “Mister Q”. This Qwilleran owns no pets. He has no job. He has no home. All his worldly goods can be packed into two suitcases. And his wife is now his ex-wife.
“The Mysterious Affair at Styles” by Agatha Christie
In this first novel by Agatha Christie, published in 1920, she introduces the inimitable Poirot, who would go on to appear in 33 Christie novels and 54 short stories. In fact, Christie spent so much time with Poirot that she began to think of him as “insufferable” and “an ego-centric creep.”
