Green for Danger by Christianna Brand (Guest Sergio Angelini): Part 1

GREEN FOR DANGER by Christianna Brand is a masterful wartime mystery set in a British hospital during the Blitz. When a patient dies under suspicious circumstances, Inspector Cockrill investigates a web of secrets among the medical staff. It’s a standout in Golden Age detective fiction.

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Characters & Relationships in Green for Danger by Christianna Brand

1. The characters are intensely intertwined—romantically, professionally, emotionally. Did that closeness heighten the tension for you, or did the story veer into melodrama?
2. Several characters fall hard and fast in love. Marion loves Gervase, who toys with her affections. Barney loves less-than-steady Freddi, who has a thing for Gervase. Barney tells Freddi, “I’d rather have cruelty than dishonesty. I’d rather be hurt than deceived.” If given the choice, which would you prefer? And is this type of emotional intensity convincing given the historical moment—or did it feel exaggerated?
3. Gervase “looked at his ugly face and greying hair, at his thin, angular body and restless hands—and wondered what on earth women saw in him, and wished they wouldn’t” (2). He’s also married: “Once, long ago, one of the lovely ladies had been importunate, and he had not then acquired his skill in evading desperate situations. He had not seen her for several years, but she formed a shield against similar assaults upon his liberty” (32). Esther is the “only female in the hospital who can see Gervase Eden without swooning at his feet” (35). What exactly do the female characters see in “Don Juan” Gervase?
4. Some characters are haunted by loss. Esther left her mother behind to volunteer. After her mother’s building was hit, and “For two days and two nights she had waited in anguish while men toiled unceasingly at the mountain of rubble” (20). Major Moon mourns his dead son. Did you feel more for some characters than others?

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Transcript

Sarah Harrison: 0:12

Welcome to Tea, Tonic and Toxin, the only book club and podcast dedicated to exploring mysteries chronologically from Edgar Allan Poe to the present, we're discussing the best mysteries and thrillers ever written, as well as interviewing some of the world's most talented contemporary mystery and thriller writers. I'm your host, Sarah Harrison.

Carolyn Daughters: 0:34

And I'm your host, Carolyn Daughters. We aim to educate, entertain and reignite interest in exceptional and often overlooked authors who shaped the genre. Check us out at tea tonic and toxin.com and on our socials to find tons of great content and take part in the conversation. We love hearing from listeners, and we're excited you're joining us on our journey through the history of mystery. Today's sponsor is Linden Botanicals, a Colorado based company that sells the world's healthiest herbal teas and extracts. Their team has traveled the globe to find the herbs that offer the best science based support for stress, relief, energy, memory, mood, kidney and joint health, digestion, and inflammation. Us. Order is over $75 ship. Free To learn more, visit lindenbotanicals.com and use code MYSTERY to get 15% off your first order.

Sarah Harrison: 1:27

Carolyn, good morning. Sergio, good morning. We're looking forward to talking about Green for Danger by Christianna Brand!

Sergio Angelini: 1:33

Good morning to you both.

Sarah Harrison: 1:35

We are excited for today's podcast. We were just talking about our time zone situation.

Carolyn Daughters: 1:41

We are all across the world.

Sergio Angelini: 1:46

Well, it's very nice. At three o'clock in the afternoon, it's very civilized where I am good.

Sarah Harrison: 1:51

We try and make it comfortable for our guests as much as we can.

Sergio Angelini: 1:55

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Sarah Harrison: 1:57

Before we get started, we do have a shout out we want to do for our listener. We've been getting a lot of listener activity lately, which is always exciting. But today's shout out goes to Geoffrey Thomas. Geoffrey is from Aurora, Colorado, and he is our newest Patreon member at the Raven level. Geoffrey already received his flat swag packet. So thank you, Geoffrey, and he was full of ideas and recommendations, even including a Doctor Who episode inspired by Agatha Christie. So I'm going to have to watch that one before we do our next Agatha Christie book. But thank you so much for listening. Geoffrey. Thanks for joining Patreon, and if you guys would like to get your own sticker or flat swag packet, please feel free to reach out chat, join the Patreon, message us any possible way. We are always checking every communication channel to see what our listeners have to say about the podcast. So thank you.

Carolyn Daughters: 3:03

Very cool. When we got his feedback multiple times and he was, like, super energized about the podcast, which we love.

Sarah Harrison: 3:12

He even sent a picture of his sticker. So that's exciting.

Carolyn Daughters: 3:17

Do send pictures of your stickers? Why not? So today we're talking about Green for Danger by Christianna Brand, an author I had not heard of before we added her to our history of mystery lineup for 2026. Green for Danger was published in 1944 it's a golden age master class of red herrings and twists. The story, set during World War Two, features a tense and claustrophobic investigation with a close knit circle of suspects. It's 1942 and struggling up the hill to a New Kent military hospital, Heron's Park, postman Joseph Higgins is soon to deliver seven acceptance letters for roles at the infirmary. He has no idea that the sender of one of the letters will be the cause of his death in just one year's time when he when Higgins returns to Heron's Park with injuries from a bombing rat in 1943 his death by asphyxiation in the operating theater cast four nurses and three doctors under suspicion when a second death occurs in quick succession, the moody yet shrewd inspector Cockrill arrives on the scene, the stage is set for a tense and claustrophobic investigation. One of the doctors or nurses in this close knit group must be the murderer, but who did it and why.

Sarah Harrison: 4:44

Christianna Brand was the pseudonym of Mary Christianna Milne, a British crime writer born in 1907 and British Malaya, now Malaysia. She's best known for her mystery novels featuring Detective Inspector Cockrill. She. She also wrote several acclaimed short story collections and wrote the nurse Matilda book series for children, which now I'm going to have to check out. She served as chair of the Crime Writers Association from 1972 to 1973 and was nominated three times for Edgar Awards. She died in 1988 about Christianna Brand. Anthony Boucher wrote, you have to reach for the greatest of the great names, Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen, to find Christianna Brand rivals in the subtleties of the trade. Kirkus Reviews wrote that "Green for Danger is hands down one of the best formal detective stories ever written." I hope we're going to talk a little bit about what we mean by formal detective stories.

Carolyn Daughters: 5:48

Today we're excited to welcome our special guest, Sergio Angelini. Sergio was born and bred in Rome, Italy, moving to Singapore for five years in the 1980s before settling in the UK. He studied law at London School of Economics and got a joint MA in film studies and film archiving from the University of East Anglia. He has worked in film and education for over 30 years. He edited the educational media quarterly view finder for a decade, and for over eight years, was the reviewer of TV, home video releases for sight and sound magazine. For 15 years, he was involved in the development running of the educational streaming resource, B, O, B, box of broadcasts. He's provided video essays, audio commentaries and booklet notes for various DVD and blu ray releases for such labels as arrow BFI, Eureka, Hammer films, imprint and indicator. Previous print publications include contributions to Gilbert Adair mysteries unlocked, the cult TV book and directors in British and Irish cinema. And Sergio, you also have a podcast and blog focused on crime and film noir called Tipping My Fedora, which is how I found you. Welcome, Sergio.

Sergio Angelini: 7:12

Thanks very much. Yes, that's all correct.

Carolyn Daughters: 7:18

We want you to read a bit from Green for Danger by Christianna Brand. But first, quickly introduce your podcast, which is how we connected with you. Talk a little bit about your interests. And I think you have a lot of books behind you as well.

Sergio Angelini: 7:32

I do, yes, the podcast was actually something that I started doing based on previous activities, Tipping My Fedora. Used to be the name of a blog, and it was a crime and mystery blog that I ran between 2011 and 2017. It still exists, but basically I finished around then and concentrated on other things, and then couple of years ago, decided that I was going to start working on a reference guide to film noir, so I was focusing on that a lot, and then a lot of things came up, and through a lot of conversations, it was one of those things where it seemed right, well, hey, what about doing a podcast me chatting with friends and people who I hadn't perhaps met before, and to discuss different aspects of it. So the focus was very much on me talking to other people about things that they're interested in, rather than necessarily me merely presenting something that hopefully going to put in book form. [You found me through my blog on Green for Danger by Christianna Brand.] Eventually, the book is not out, and it will probably be out towards the end of next year, if I get around to finishing it, the podcast has taken a bit of a life of its own, and it's ended up sucking up a lot of energy, but my interest in it derives from my interest in crime fiction. I'm one of those people. I was born in the late 60s, and started reading crime fiction around 1982 so I would have been about 13. And it was one of those things where being brought up in Italy in particular, where mysteries are just called jalli. So that's where the Jalo term comes from, and it's based on fact they had yellow covers. Now, if one uses the term, it's associated with a certain often quite lurid horror thriller. But in Italy, it just means a mystery. In the same way that noir, meaning black in Italy would refer to you would say Nero, but you would mean a dark crime story. And if you say something Rosa, which means pink, it means romance. So it means romance novels, so it'd be harmony or things like that. So color coding in Italian publishing and TV is quite common. So my interest goes back to then really, I started reading classical authors, as I think you do when you're doing early reading. To end up reading people like Agatha Christie or Ian Fleming, let's say, just because it's that transition, perhaps from sort of children's books before maybe the idea, particularly the classification of young adult literature became so widespread. At least, I didn't feel it was something that really existed for me around 1982 it's like, no. Now I'm reading adult books, and I think that there's a certain point in your reading when you start to realize that you're understanding it better and you're getting more from it. And I think for me, the author that turned things around was probably Raymond Chandler, in the sense that the big sleep, which was the first of his that I read, which to me, I still think is a fantastic book, but it's also a book that, particularly because it has such a poetic approach he has that, it's a bit like A Tale of Two Cities. It has a famous opening paragraph and it has a famous end paragraph. People tend to forget what happens in between the two. But that's not to say that it isn't great. And in the case of The Big Sleep, there was just that realization that it wasn't just about story, that it was about universal themes, and there were important things being discussed. And so there I was probably 13, going on 14, and thinking, aha, so that then becomes a bridge, a gateway to reading other kinds of books as well. I think my next favorite author after that was Kafka. It's just one of those things. And then whatever it was that we were probably studying in school, a lot of Italian authors. But it was one of those things, and it was an interesting mixture for me, but I didn't really lose that. So although I'm not just interested in noir or noir authors, I think it's always been mystery, including mysteries like Green for Danger by Christianna Brand. It's crime mystery and noir, and that's what the blog is about, and that's definitely what the podcast is about. But for instance, I'm planning to do one on top 10 Agatha Christie movies, and it's not because they're noir or anything necessarily, although one of them might be, but it's more about the idea of crime, mystery and detection, with noir as an important aspect to it. So that's where I'm coming from, and that's what gets me up in the morning.

Carolyn Daughters: 12:24

No, that's, that's awesome. And I found you because you had written a little bit about Christianna Brand's Green for Danger, which is our second selection for 2026 and so I was excited because I was researching online and unable to find a lot about her or a lot of people writing about her, and so I thought we have to have Sergey on to have this conversation, to launch the conversation. Would you read a little bit for us from Green for Danger so we can hear Christianna Brand's voice?

Sergio Angelini: 13:00

Okay, so here's a section from in my edition, which I think is not the same as yours. In mine, it's page 132 but otherwise

Carolyn Daughters: 13:10

it's the same it's the same page.

Sergio Angelini: 13:13

I was wondering, I had a horrible feeling that they didn't bother changing the typesetting. So there you go. So my edition has been about four decades before the British Library published theirs. They're using exactly the same one. I thought it might be. So here we go. Okay, so here are I'm going to start three lines up from where we said, Okay, so here we go. This is all really rather awful, Inspector, isn't it? Getting the wind up? Are you? Said, Cockrill Woody, considered, well, yes, I think I am. You women are all arrant cowards, said Cocky contemptuously. Woods looked about her at the bomb scarred landscape and the blast pitted buildings where she and 100 other women were voluntarily spending the days of their service to their country. At the fields pitted with craters, at the gaunt, white limbs of the trees broken down by a bomb the night before, at the ruins of the Navy, Army, Air Force Institute, where a girl called groves where she had hardly who she had whom she had hardly known had been killed by a falling masonry. At the patches of dry grass all around her, blackened and scorched by innumerable incendiary bombs at the jagged fragments of bomb casing littered littering the ground at her feet. For a moment, she felt the earth shudder and rock beneath her. For a moment, the guns thundered in her ears, and the drone of the bombers was turned by the shriek of a falling bomb, six months of it, six months of it, day and night, almost incessantly. And in all that time, she had not known the meaning of fear. Had not seen in the face about her, in the faces about her, the faces of middle aged women or young girls, a shadow of panic or failure or endurance at an end, one felt. Felt it. Of course, some people had a queasy sensation when the sirens wailed. Some people's tummies turned over at the sound of a falling bomb. Most of them would go through life with a humiliating tendency to fling themselves flat on their faces at any loud noise. But that was all they were. All much too busy and tired to be afraid. She smiled outright this time and said with a lift of her strong black eyebrows, oh yes, we're terrible cowards. There's no doubt of that.

Carolyn Daughters: 15:34

That's it. So when we had tried to figure out, like, Okay, we want, we knew we wanted you to do a reading, and you had maybe a chapter, a short chapter, earmarked, and we discussed choosing this reading. You had some thoughts to share. And so what are your thoughts about this particular passage?

Sergio Angelini: 15:58

I think, on the one hand, it crystallizes very well one of the major themes of Green for Danger, which is this idea of, isn't there something almost unimportant about a murder mystery at a time of war, when you've got 1000s of people dying every single day, how can you With any seriousness of intent investigate such a small crime, they're all crimes in their own way. So why does it matter? And the book does deal with that in a number of ways, and it's a humorous book, and it's a serious book, and it has some poignancy, particularly in the last page, which is wonderful, and we'll get to that, I'm sure. But I think that it seems to me that what's useful about this is that it, on the one hand, explores that aspect of it very nicely. I do think, however, that it also seems to put our protagonist Cocky our series character who only appeared in six books. It's got to be said, it's not a lot for a inverted commas, Golden Age detective. If you're less than 20 or 30, that sounds like you're just not trying very hard, with all due respect. And it seems an interesting moment, because obviously one of the questions that comes out of that is, How bad does this make Cocky look? Is he suddenly become this misogynist person, as he has his investigation halfway through Green for Danger turned him against all the VADs, for some reason, is there some reason why he suddenly decided these are terrible people? Not so much. I don't think. I think it's very interesting. I think that one of the interesting aspects of Green for Danger is the way that we feel about Cocky because we don't actually know all that much about him, and yet we know that he can be he can be intimate, he can be witty, he can be thoughtful, but sometimes he's not also entirely right, and he seems boastful sometimes, and yet you're never quite sure if this is for effect. And to me, certainly, when I read it, I thought he's trying to get a rise out of her because, and I do think this is an interesting passage for all kinds of reasons, but one of the things that I think it leads to is the climax of Green for Danger we'll get. Obviously, we're going to get to that. But it seems to me that that sense that you've got that barrier between you as an outsider, in his case, and these people who all work together, literally live cheek by jowl, and who are in this situation where they're going to be understanding and supportive of each other, in this situation where you're accusing one of them of being a murderer and yet at the same time. So it should be he's saying, shouldn't you all be worried? Shouldn't you all be scared that there's a murderer amongst you? You're one of you has already been killed. Another outsider was killed, but seemingly a completely innocent, harmless individual that nobody seems to have disliked. So again, in this case, it was the least likely victim instead of the least likely suspect. And you're thinking, why, and you don't seem that bothered by it. So he makes this comment, and you think, well, if it's an offhand comment, it's in pretty poor taste, and he somehow can't, this is after several years of war, seems very unlikely that he would somehow do that. I don't think he somehow missed the war. Even in Kent, they knew about the war. They were very near the coast. The planes were coming in just fine from from overseas. So it seems to me that I believe that he's pushing her, because that none of them is revealing themselves in a way that's useful to him. But of course, he's only there to do one thing. He's there to do some. Thing that maybe they don't respect. Now, that's interesting, that's interesting, and that's one of the great things about Green for Danger, but what I was going to ask you about was, is that in your notes for this, and I should have warned you, I'll just keep talking if you don't shut me up if you mentioned that the narrator makes certain comments. But it seems to me that the narrator is not making any comments at all. I feel like we have a completely invisible Narrator here. Surely it's Woody, it, who is feeling that way about her surrounding surroundings, and in a way, Cocky is getting what he wants. He's getting us turned up. And that's the point. But at the same time, it means that you can have that juxtaposition, that depth of feeling, because it was this a book that came out during the war, people living this on a daily basis. They didn't need to be told that.

Carolyn Daughters: 20:53

The narrator in Green for Danger is definitely channeling Woody, but the narratorial voice, I think, is one layer outside of Woody, and the narrator is able to dip in and out as we see, so that that's my perspective, but, but Sarah, you were also thinking, I think maybe you can share what you were thinking about this particular passage. Were you feeling that that he was triggering? He was deliberately triggering.

Sarah Harrison: 21:22

There were a few times where I was trying to figure out what's going on and coffin is not a character. I was actually surprised to learn, like, Oh, this guy recurs in books. Okay? I didn't realize they were going to make the whole lead out of him in multiple books. Like, he's the famous detective, because he almost seems to have a somewhat smallish part. He's just, he's a person, and I couldn't tell, like, is he playing them? Is he trying to get a rise out of them? It's very deep into their relationships with each other, very deep. And you mentioned the narratorial voice. It floats around. And I'll usually try and track that in a mystery to see, like whose thoughts are not being revealed. I never have been successful with solving mysteries that way. But I feel like if I know whose thoughts are not being revealed, when that should be a clue, right? And it would just dip into here and there, there's, there's not a lot of thoughts from Cocky. I didn't, I couldn't get a sense. Similarly to when he said, I know who did it. I'm just trying to get them to confess. I was like, I don't know if, I don't know if you really do, or if you're just trying to get them to confess, and you're putting the pressure on them. So he was a really interesting character to me. I thought he was very unlikely in the way he was written. He's not a typical detective that I think we've read before, and this particular passage seemed a little bit out of character, but I didn't feel like I got a good sense of his character, so I was a little all over the place with Cocky I didn't feel like it was a commentary on his true thoughts on women or anything. It was just shot out there.

Carolyn Daughters: 23:13

One of the criticisms Christianna Brand, I believe, received from the publication of Green for Danger is that the character seemed comfortable in their wartime surroundings. There was some response to the book suggesting that nobody would put their feet up on a table or a desk and sit back while you're in wartime, while bombs are falling, and Christianna Brand came back and said, this was our day to day life. We talked about this, Sarah and I recently when we read and discussed ministry the ministry of fear, by Graham Greene, this idea of the normalcy of war. And for me, that's the most interesting part of this particular passage that was read, is this idea that this is what they live with. So the way in which we can adapt to our new normal, I don't know if that makes sense.

Sergio Angelini: 24:18

Well, I mean, in a way, that is the logical thing to do, surely. And I think that people are living that every day. And I think we would do the same, whether it's some much more likely, unfortunately, a personal trauma, a personal sadness, or some terrible thing that's befallen as, say, as a family, or something like that. You're still probably going to have meals, watch TV, you're still going to maybe read a book. I mean, one of the from an external side, something rotten happened to me a year ago, and the most obvious thing was, is that I stopped doing Wordle for a bit, and eventually I went back. But it wasn't on my mind, of all the habitual things I was going to remember, the ones I did with other people. But oddly enough, this solitary things, no, not so much, that was out of my brain. So I think it makes sense, I suspect, and this is what's intriguing to me about Christianna Brand and the extent to which she worked so well in the genre, yet at the same time, didn't publish a huge amount. And I think her children's books are roughly about 50% of her output compared with her mystery output. So although she's writing and doing other things over an extended period, and is a beloved author in many respects, I think that her output is quite small in both camps, which is useful because it means it's not difficult to say you've read all of Christianna Brand that they used to be hard to get the British libraries, particularly her publication of Death of a Jezebel has been brilliant, because that was very hard to get. But I think there's a couple of things here. I think one, I think Green for Danger may very well be her best book, but it's not the one in which Cocky has the best role, Inspector Cockrill. We're calling him Cocky. Cocky is a funny thing to say if you're British in, I dare say in American, it just sounds like you're arrogant. It's just short for cockerel and, and I think that he has a tour de force, is usually the one that's thought of as being the best one with Him in it, shall we say, from that point of view. Because I agree. I mean, I had a, once a very long conversation with a good buddy who has a blog called The Invisible event. Jim Noy. He's a terrific guy, great podcaster as well, called in gad we trust, G, A, D, Golden Age indication. He's a funny guy, and he and he reads very carefully what he talks about. He's super detailed. He's one of those people. I'm really not. I'm a broad strokes kind of guy. You're going to find that out. But one of the things is, is that we were talking about the Maltese Falcon, and particularly, we're talking about Dashiell Hammett, and he loads that book with a passion, and I cannot understand. And I kept trying to talk him into it. We were sitting there in the same room try, and I'm trying really hard, trying to both find out what's your problem with the Maltese book. And in the end, and he'll probably get in touch with him as well. Say, I don't remember it like this at all, so just edit that out. That's right. But he was saying, well, because I don't have access to what's going on in Sam's page head.

Sarah Harrison: 27:45

Yes, that's such a feature.

Sergio Angelini: 27:47

But I was saying, I never know what's going on in Hercule Poirot's head either act is, is that it doesn't matter quite as much not to be mean for in Dashiell Hammett, for an author like Hammett, and talk about writers who didn't produce a lot. You wrote five novels and 25 short stories in the crime genre. You're looking at someone where, because they're so hard, but they're so plausible in lots of ways, not being able to penetrate the character beyond the superficial character. And of course, they talk about how important services are in that. So he talks about that. He says it's useful if people think you're more corrupt than you really are, it's a facade. So I was saying to Jim, I said, No, no, come on, dude, I didn't really say it like that, but he likes other books by Dashiell Hammett. He doesn't like that one. He's wrong. It's a shame, because Jim's such a bright guy here, I feel like we don't know what's going with Poirot, because he's a great guy, and he'll, you should invite him. You think I can talk the behind legs off a donkey. But the thing is, is that it seems to me that we don't find out very much about Cocky in Green for Danger. What I will say, and we should perhaps get into it at some point, is that one of the ways that I think Christianna Brand is very clever is, is that she because it's the Kent constabulary. Now Kent's big, and this was an imaginary place. So we don't have small it actually is, but we get this impression that they all know about each other. And what's interesting is Cocky knows a couple of the characters. Crucially, knows two of the most important characters in some respect, and that, to a certain extent, is used to change how we feel about them. And that's partly because Cocky. We see him in a slightly more pleasing, friendly understanding manner. He's very nice towards as he says, Well, of course, I knew your mother, and all these things and, and he's perfectly fine about that. And, and yet, given the way the story goes, you feel almost like. You have to reread it. And in fact, it has, I think, a reasonable impact on how he reaches the end that he reaches, it seems to me. So we have some sense of it, but it's very limited. But I think that's Christianna Brand being very clever with her cards and keeping most of them very tightly to a test.

Sarah Harrison: 30:18

I did end up rereading the first chapter again at the end of Green for Danger. And there was one part that stuck with me throughout, throughout the whole book. I want to read this paragraph real quick, if I may, because it speaks to what we're saying about you just can't escape, really, the mundanities of your own life, regardless of what's going on. It's when they're all getting their letters. In chapter one, the reaction of sister Bates to her transition from civilian to military nursing was simple and forth, right? She thought, perhaps I shall meet some nice officers. And lest anyone be tempted to despise such single minded devotion to the opposite sex. It may be pointed out that this innocent aspiration was shared in a greater or less degree by 20 future members of the sisters mass and at least 50 VA DS. I thought it was what. I didn't realize how well I was being set up at that point. But it did keep coming back to it like because the love triangle aspect of the book, or the love parallelogram, love complexion of the book, keeps coming up in and figures pretty crucially in the plot. And then here we have poor sister Bates just hoping to meet a nice guy, and everyone feeling the same, like we're all getting bombed, we're all saving lives. It's a very tragic, intense lifestyle, and she's hoping to meet a nice guy while she's there.

Carolyn Daughters: 31:54

But so I think that romance elements of Green for Danger were interesting. And I think Christianna Brand is so funny that a lot of the interactions between the characters, like when I was reading, I was actually like, smiling a lot of the time when I was reading what was on the page, and a lot of it had to do with the way the characters were talking to each other, but at times, and I had to reread part of Green for Danger. And Sergio, I want to hear what you have to say about this. But when I went to reread, the reason I reread was because I was getting a little bit lost in some of the characters, so I didn't reread. I said, after the book, after I was through maybe 50 pages, I stopped and I went back because there were so many characters introduced and so many different people interweaving and connecting and everybody's got a nickname. So there's Woody and Freddie and Barney and Cocky and so did I mean is? Did either of you have that challenge? Like, but when I went and reread it, and then I started making character notes, I was like, got it, but the first time I was reading, I was like, lost a little bit.

Sergio Angelini: 33:12

I don't know. Well, I'll tell you something. I mean, I, I'm, I'm a bad person to ask about this, because that has to be a lot of the time. Anyway. I just find that problematic. One of the things about when you buy a Jalo in Italy, they keep, they've kept up that thing that used to be very common in books of the 20s and 30s. They always have a cast list at the front, so you can hang on, who's that? And they even describe what they what their role is, they just give a name. They simply say Gideon Fell Alexa, Alexa, cographer. John Dickson Carr used to write that for his book. It was part and parcel of the genre at the time.

Sarah Harrison: 33:51

Do they so do that, even if it's not like the author didn't include it?

Sergio Angelini: 33:57

They weren't necessarily, they'll have the cast of characters. They weren't necessarily put the encomia they were. They won't put the descriptions, but they'll, they'll have the names Absolutely, which is very handy, I think, because certainly I mean not to be mean. There are authors I like and authors I like less. And from this era, one of the authors that I personally don't find as interesting is, is Ngaio Marsh. It was very popular. Read her later. Lots of luck. I hope you get a lot out of it, because I do not take you off the guest list. Please do because, well, unless you really want somebody who comes in and is just grumpy the whole time, but what I will say, and got a certain amount in common with Christianna Brand. This is why I mentioned her name. She introduces a vast number of characters in Green for Danger, and you get these wonderful descriptions of the social scene, and it's the first half of the story, or the certain first part of the story, and then somebody dies, and then the investigation just drags and drags and drags. Because that's extremely mechanical and dull to me, whereas all the character stuff is usually great, and it's just massively disappointing to me. Other people do not feel this way, but, but it's the same sense that you get all these characters thinking, what am I supposed to think about this, and to and it's, is it deliberately confusing? Because how do I know which one of these is important? And I do wonder that. And I think there's an element of that where you're just being thrown in, and it's a blizzard of activity, and then it's going to shrunk down. I will tell you one. What I like about that opening chapter, of course, that you just quoted from is, of course, that it it's so clear that you've got seven people suspects. One of them is a murderer, and it she doesn't deviate. She plays completely fair. There are other authors who've done clever things with that sort of idea, and here we don't get that, she's going to play fair, and she does. And it works because it doesn't ruin it. Just, know, because seven is quite a lot. But what I mean, it's interesting, because when they made the film, they cut two of them out. It's only five. Well, it's a good idea. I mean, if you haven't seen the film version of Green for Danger, it's a wonderful film, but because the film's 92 minutes, you have to compress, and that's understood. So the easiest thing to do is to collapse two characters together. And all who did they cut? What? Moon's gone.

Carolyn Daughters: 36:31

Oh, wow.

Sergio Angelini: 36:32

So he's not a suspect at all. And actually, Williams gone. He semi exists. His role isn't there. That's but I don't want to spoil anything. But we can spoil, since you haven't seen the film, you should see the film.

Sarah Harrison: 36:50

We didn't see the film. I feel like that's a miss.

Sergio Angelini: 36:54

But the one thing, the one thing I was gonna say was, the great thing about the film, is the guy playing Cocky is this wonderful actor, Alistair sim, who may have seen it Scrooge, there's a wonderful comic actor, Marsh actor. One of the things he has is this fantastic voice. He was known for his voice. So they get him to narrate. So the voice of the film is his, and it's quite humorous because, because he seemingly gets things wrong, and we'll see that at the end they deal with all of that. He's not a heroic figure, but he's a more plausible, realistic figure. I think that one of the things you both touched on, which is so interesting to me, is that some of the sort of criticisms that Christianna Brand seems to have had in Green for Danger that you were alluding to, Carolyn, it seems to me that some of that is just to do with being comparatively frank and candid about certain things, precisely like, Well, no, life doesn't just go on. It almost goes on the same. Because what are your options? Well, this is a story in which we see what those options are, what not being able to cope will do to you. Most of them, for whatever reason, they're better adjusted, they're luckier. They haven't had such terrible traumas, perhaps, and maybe their parents were nicer to them. Whatever the reason is, they can cope. And some of that may be because they're constantly overly nice to each other. I mean, one of the things that I joked about with actually, about my friend Jim, was about the fact people was constantly calling each other darling all the time and things like that. I mean, it's very true, I was, I re watched the movie, the movie with my mum just the other day, now, mom's of that generation. She remembers the war, and none of that struck her as odd at all, they all had nicknames for each other, she and a friend, and her best friend, they always called each other bunny, for instance. And that was just that, was it? That was the kind of thing you did. And it was just they had both been given that nickname separately before they met. It was just so common. So using these affectionate terms was because, they're very soft, cuddly, nice terms, after all, they're not calling you horrible. We've discussed that some of the characters we haven't discussed about this, other characters are presented in a perhaps less flattering way.

Carolyn Daughters: 39:25

One character's rattlesnake or something instead of bunny, right? Like, exactly that. One's not good.

Sergio Angelini: 39:34

I think that's very common. And I think is that experience that people who went through it would absolutely recognize. But what's also true is that she talks, makes funny jokes about people not going to the air rat shelter, and so they get hauled out of bed, and you find out what they wear in bed, which, instead of having nice Jaeger pajamas, you've got knickers and a vest, and you've got to trot along, and you think it will. Well, and that was probably a little more than some readers wanted to know. And yet, I think that's what makes that book, I think, stand out. I totally believe all of that, and I do, I think all of that, I think, is completely credible and absolutely to the book's credit.

Carolyn Daughters: 40:21

So with regard to these characters and these relationships in Green for Danger, I want to know like who you both identified with most or felt the most for. Like for me, I felt very little for Mary and Bates, which I think was the way I was supposed to feel but Barney, who's in love with Freddie. I felt for Barney. I felt probably the most for Woody, who just seems like a really smart, funny, sensible lady who maybe is overlooked a little bit by Eden touch, because he's very, he's very brotherly and affectionate toward her.

Sarah Harrison: 41:10

Just jerk. He's just, but not put her off.

Carolyn Daughters: 41:15

I don't know I,

Sarah Harrison: 41:19

I like to, can't shut his mouth. He's like at your face, that guy.

Carolyn Daughters: 41:25

So that's what I want to hear and like. Because I came into Green for Danger thinking I'm gonna hate Dr Eden because he just and then I didn't, I didn't like, I liked all these main So Sarah, tell me what you're tell me what's going on with Dr Eden.

Sarah Harrison: 41:41

He's such a type. He is such a type. He's almost overtyped. If I could say, well, I've never really met anyone like that. But of course, you have. You've always met someone like that guy your face, who's like, you meet him again at the very beginning, where the women are falling all over him. He's like, I just wish I knew what I did and then I'd stop doing it. Really, you don't know. It just compliments flowing out of your mouth for flirtations all of the time. He calls, what do you call Freddie an orchid? You look like an orchid. And then he sees that look in her eye, and he's like, whoops, whoops. Reel that back in the same, same with everybody. You don't hear Barney falling all over complimenting everyone else, but Gervase compliments everyone. And then he only wants to keep it light, right? He never wants to get caught in a commitment. And if it seems like somebody's falling for him, he becomes a little bit cruel in terms of backing it up. And I just by the end, I was like, just grow up, man. Shut up or grow up. Stop falling all over, complimenting all these women and then not wanting them.

Sergio Angelini: 42:59

How dare you be nice to all these women. What's wrong with you?

Sarah Harrison: 43:04

Barnes is nice. Moon is nice.

Sergio Angelini: 43:07

No, what makes Eden an interesting character is because usually what he says is right, in the sense that if we take, if we take the last scene in particular, without necessarily dwelling, but, but it seems to me that it crystallizes that aspect of it again. To use that word again, because I mean absolutely, to me, Woodie is the hero, the emotional of Green for Danger. I love great. I'd marry her tomorrow. She's a bit okay. She'd be going getting on a bit by now. I'm sure she's lovely woman, but she'd be 105. But she's wonderful. She's a great character. And, and I feel that Eden, that last conversation they have, it makes it makes me, I think, reflect on how he's been in the story. You're thinking, I mean, you're so right, Sarah. I mean, I, I've definitely met blokes like, I'm definitely not one of them. If I had to pick a character I could sympathize with, unfortunately, and I'm not happy about it, I'd probably, well, I'm probably a bit more like moon, or a bit like Barney, in the sense that these people who get a little bit too uptight and who maybe have Tey take around their own burdens with them, and therefore they're not really as easily attractive. Because the thing about Eden is, is that the attractiveness is partly, you can have a nice time with Eden.

Carolyn Daughters: 44:36

What is that? What is the attraction you guys, both of you tell me, like,

Sergio Angelini: 44:41

I could talk about the women, I can't talk about the men. I don't find any of them attractive.

Sarah Harrison: 44:44

I'm verbally complimenting them. He's always seeing their good points. He's always pointing out the nice things about them. Nobody else is out there. Telling Freddie, she looks like an orchid. Nobody's out there telling Woody, like, what a good mother she would make.

Carolyn Daughters: 44:59

Why did best? Back handed.

Sarah Harrison: 45:05

But Eden comes off as this incredible flirt, and so he's saying stuff, but he doesn't want to be taken seriously.

Carolyn Daughters: 45:13

That is so hard, though. At the end, when he says to her, to what? In Green for Danger when Gervais Eden says to Woody, I think the man that marries you is going to be a very lucky fellow, and that she'd make a great a nice wife and mother. And you're like, Oh, nice.

Sergio Angelini: 45:33

Like, it wouldn't hurt if it weren't true and the thing is, he's not being mean. He genuinely likes it. That's the thing.

Carolyn Daughters: 45:40

I felt that.

Sarah Harrison: 45:42

And the thing about it is like, sir, but you see those pivots in him where he sees the look in their eye, and then he will say something callous to put that off. Put that off. So I can't say he's not mean, but he does their feelings a little bit for them.

Sergio Angelini: 45:59

Who wouldn't if you had women constantly throwing themselves out. I'd come up with something. I think that it's interesting, isn't it? You what I think is good, as well as that people. You have the obvious identification figures, and in a way you don't care that much about Freddie in Green for Danger. And yet you're, you're supposed, that's supposed to be. If this was a Patricia Wentworth story where you always have to have a romance, I'm not particularly a fan of Patricia Wentworth either. I'm gonna stop saying things like that. Oh, Okay, excellent. No, I don't think so, but you always have a romance. We always have a couple, and they would get together by the end, that would be they that would be these two. And as a couple, I don't think they're gonna make it. And I just don't think she's, she's into him enough, and, right? And he, he's in love with her, and has said so and means it, and he's sincere, and he's nice and whatever, he's perfectly all right. Truth is, she probably needs a little bit more, and she's not going to get it. She's either going to turn to gin or do something sensible with her life. Well, I got to keep mentioning gin, obviously, but it seems to me, I think that what I think is so good is, of course, is that Christianna Brand is telling us these are the most interesting characters, and I'm going to end them. And it's poignant, and it's sad and but if he wasn't being mean to her, he's never mean to people in in that sense of, he's you can argue he's being mean, and sense he's being honest. We saying, Look, I'm not interested. He's saying we talked about this, and he's saying, but you're not considering my feelings. This is, well, how am I supposed to fix that? It doesn't change how I feel. An impossible conversation to have. What's great about Green for Danger is that this is something that gets us discussing it, because there aren't a lot of 1940s murder mysteries where this is likely to come up, in my opinion, I think there are interesting things in all kinds of wonderful books from that era, and I think we're well past this idea that, genre fiction is not serious and can't have proper characterization or discuss important themes. But equally, I think a film like the, excuse me, a book like this, which seems to have a straightforward trajectory, and a classical structure, and yet, well, no, actually, it slightly doesn't really follow through with a classical structure, or rather, it does, but keeps adding all this other stuff that slightly makes the momentum very askew. Sometimes things don't go the way you think you're going to, and yet you get there in the end. It's having your cake and eating it, especially if you're, I think a more sensitive reader, so that's why I think what makes us a good book?

Sarah Harrison: 49:05

Well, we're coming up on time, but I want to just wrap this conversation of woody real quick with another passage from the beginning of the book, which so perfectly sets up the story arc in chapter six, right after Gervase and Freddie have their encounter, and Freddie thinks to herself, whew, I'm glad Esther and Woody didn't see this. And meanwhile, they're home talking exactly about that. They didn't have to see it to know what's going on. But then Woody shares her plan. She says, If I can prevent her from going off the rocks with this Don Juan of hers by fair means or foul, I will. I don't think there's the earthliest chance of my getting hurt in the process, but if I do well, I've been hurt before, and I can take it again. She belched vigorously and patted her chest my godfathers. That's stew. Well, I hope it works well. And I hope you ever, and I hope you ever get any thanks from Frederica, if it does well, I don't want any thanks. Said Woody calmly and Esther looking at her, sending sitting there, bundled up in shawls, fat and jolly and rather common with her, made up face and shining, shrewd, dark eyes, said to her lovingly, No, darling, you never do, and I didn't, it says up the tragic story arc of Woody. Yes, Sergio, this has been fantastic. We have loved chatting with you, and I can't believe we're out of time for our episode already.

Sergio Angelini: 50:41

Sorry about that. I'm sure that's all my fault.

Sarah Harrison: 50:45

No, not at all, not at all. Do we have time for a second episode?

Sergio Angelini: 50:53

I can stick around?

Carolyn Daughters: 50:55

Sure. Let's do it.

Sarah Harrison: 50:57

Awesome. Listeners, come back with us whenever we get it posted and listen to more of Sergio's comments on Green for Danger. Thanks so much for listening. Please help other mystery lovers find our show with a like, subscribe, share or rating. It's totally free, and it means the world to us. If the spirit of mystery so moves you, we have a few ways you can financially support our labor of love. Click the link in the show notes to support this podcast. Buy your books through our Amazon store, or join our Patreon, where Subscribers have access to additional episodes that include bonus content and discussions of the movies inspired by some of the greatest mysteries ever written. Thanks for joining us in our journey through the history of mystery. Until next time, stay mysterious.