Playing Nice

I can barely stand to be in the same room as my father-in-law. And I've just spent a week being actively solicitous for his health- running to and from the hospital with my mother-in-law (who drives me crackers) and sitting by his bed of pain.  I think I deserve an A* for suppressing my true feelings.

He's over the worst now- and can be expected home within the next couple of days. 

The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher: Kate Summerscale

Jonathan Whicher was the real life prototype of a certain kind of salt-of-the earth fictional detective- Cluff, Maigret, Wexford, Gideon of the Yard- and in the Road Hill House murder case he found himself investigating the prototype of the classic English country house mystery.  When a crime gets hold of the public imagination as this one did it's because there's something about it that touches a nerve- possibly several. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher gets under the surface of what is already a compelling story and gives us a wide-ranging view of the values, anxieties and snobberies of the high Victorian age.