Green for Danger by Christianna Brand (Guest Sergio Angelini): Part 2

Sergio Angelini joins Tea, Tonic & Toxin to discuss Green for Danger (1944) by Christianna Brand.

Sergio was born and bred in Rome, Italy, moving to Singapore for 5 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 hosts a podcast focused on crime and film noir called Tipping My Fedora.

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Sergio has worked in film and education for over thirty years. He edited the educational media quarterly Viewfinder for a decade and for over eight years was the reviewer of TV home video releases for Sight & Sound magazine. For 15 years he was involved in the development and running of the educational streaming resource, BoB (Box of Broadcasts). He has provided video essays, audio commentaries and booklet notes for various DVD and Blu-ray releases for such labels as Arrow, BFI, Eureka (Masters of Cinema), Hammer Films, Imprint and Indicator.

Previous print publications include contributions to Gilbert Adair (Verbivoracious Festschrift, 2014), Mysteries Unlocked (McFarland, 2014), The Cult TV Book (IB Tauris 2010) and Directors in British and Irish Cinema (BFI, 2006).

Special guest Sergio Angelini joined Tea, Tonic & Toxin to discuss Christianna Brand’s Green for Danger, published in 1943.

Green for Danger is a Golden Age masterclass of red herrings and twists. The story, set during World War II, features a tense and claustrophobic investigation with a close-knit circle of suspects.

It’s 1942, and struggling up the hill to the 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 Higgins returns to Heron’s Park with injuries from a bombing raid in 1943, his death by asphyxiation in the operating theatre casts 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 doct

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Transcript

Carolyn Daughters: 0:11

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Sarah Harrison: 1:17

Sergio is back!

Carolyn Daughters: 1:17

But before we get into all of that, because we have a lot more to discuss. We have a listener of the episode. It is Wendy Britt from Murphy, North Carolina, who wrote us and found our podcast, as people do, and she was really excited about it, so we wanted to give her a shout out and send her the world's best sticker.

Sarah Harrison: 1:43

We're excited for you, Wendy, thank you so much. It's so delightful. If somebody actually we're just regular humans. And when you listen to us and say, Hey, I liked it really nice. Thanks for doing that, Wendy!

Carolyn Daughters: 2:00

Yes, and we love all of your likes, comments, shares, rate us on your favorite podcast platform, all that stuff. It really helps. It gives us a little boost in the day to be honest with you, like we're like, yes, but also it helps like minded people find us, which is really important?

Sarah Harrison: 2:21

Yes, episodes back to back. It's probably about a week since you heard our last episode with Sergio. So let's reintroduce the book. Published in 1944, Green for Danger by Christianna Brand is a golden age classic filled with red herrings and twists and a master class among wartime stories. 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 the New Kent Military Hospital. Harrison 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 Higgins returns to Harrison park with injuries from a bombing raid in 1943 his death by asphyxiation in the operating theater casts 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 and nurses in this close knit group must be the murderer, but who did it and why?

Carolyn Daughters: 3:39

Christianna Brand was the pseudonym of Mary Christianna Milne, a British crime writer born in 1907 in British Malaya, now Malaysia. She's best known for her mystery novels featuring inspector, Detective Inspector Cockrill. She also wrote several acclaimed short story collections and wrote the nurse Matilda book series for children. 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's 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. It's also one of the best wartime stories we've read.

Sarah Harrison: 4:34

Today we are excited to welcome back 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 added. Ed, 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 and running of the educational streaming resource, BOB, box of broadcasts. He has provided video essays, audio commentaries and booklet notes for various DVD and blue it blu ray releases for such labels as arrow, BFI, Eureka, masters of cinema, Hammer films, imprint and indicator. Previous print publications include contributions to Gilbert a dare mysteries unlocked, the cult TV, book and directors in British and Irish cinema. Sergio, you also have a podcast and blog focused on crime and film noir. And I think you said you closed out Tipping my Fedora, right? Is your podcast of the same name?

Sergio Angelini: 5:58

Yes, it is. So it used to be just the name of the blog and, and I did that for a really good long time, but I was one of those things where I needed to slightly move on with other things. And then when the idea came, just real life happened. And then it was a question of the area of podcast came up, and I thought, I'll keep the title. I've still got the blog, so mostly now I use the blog to link to the podcast, which is sitting on a different website. But nonetheless, they are. They have the same title and the same basic ethos, and they definitely have the same me.

Carolyn Daughters: 6:40

Well, that's what can I tell you, you get the same Sergio.

Sergio Angelini: 6:44

Yes, you do, even though the blog was always signed Caversham Rogue, which is to explain, I lived in a place called Reading in Berkshire, and particularly in an area called Caversham and Rogue is obviously Italian meat sauce, and one is Italian. So there you go.

Carolyn Daughters: 7:05

It sounds like a character of a really bad book, but one that I still want to read.

Sergio Angelini: 7:11

Afraid not. He is fictional, but that's it. He's tastier than I am.

Sarah Harrison: 7:19

I did have a question. With all of your film background, did you come to wartime stories like Green for Danger first through the movie or through the book?

Sergio Angelini: 7:29

That's a really good question. I think what happened was, I heard about the film but couldn't get hold of a copy, because it was before VHS. Really, I'm that old and then it was so I read the book instead, because that was easier to find. It's one of those books that haven't really ever been truly out of print. I don't think it's one of, one of those ones. A lot of that's not true of a lot of Christianna Brand's books. But that one, that was the ones bit like, every author's got one, unless you're Agatha Christie, every author's got one or two. They're always in print somehow, and that's that one of her so I saw that, read it, then saw the film, and had the lovely experience of so I knew the entire story. I know who did it, and it's not changed for the film at all. And I thought the film's fantastic. And it's not often you can do that. There aren't very many adaptations. I was having a conversation with another friend of mine about the 1978 film version of death on the Nile, which improved on the book in some respects. Because the one of the odd things about the book, well, really good. It's really good. And one of the oddities of it is, is that you suddenly realize that the scene with Hercule Poirot at the end, when he wraps it up, it's really quick. I mean, it's a long book. It's one of Christie's longest Poirot books, and yet, the final, big thing, it's over in two, three pages. It's fine. It totally works as a book. But then in the film, he realize it's 15 minutes long, and it's wonderful if you if you love the idea of the traditional wrap up at the end, where everything is explained in microscopic detail, lots of flashbacks, lots of physical clues, the movies a standout, but none of it's from Green for Danger. But so therefore, there's lots to enjoy, even if the story, and that's not common, but with brand, you got great story, great characters, great setting in a movie, The setting is really fantastic. I really urge you to see the movie.

Sarah Harrison: 9:30

Yes, we're definitely going to have to. I think we have the other experience most often we just did with Ministry of Fear. We watched that movie. It was pretty disappointing.

Sergio Angelini: 9:44

It doesn't have much in common with the book, has it?

Sarah Harrison: 9:46

Graham Greene was pretty disappointed in it.

Sergio Angelini: 9:51

Well, he's right. I mean, I like the movie in its own stupid way, but it's got nothing to do with wartime stories like Green for Danger. So why not?

Sarah Harrison: 9:58

But I love that you mentioned the ending wrap up, because that was one thing that really stood out in Green for Danger. For me, it's that Inspector Cockrill went to all their trouble to bring everybody into the operating theater to hash it out. And I was like, Oh, I've seen this before. That felt more like traditional mysteries than wartime stories.

Carolyn Daughters: 10:21

Yes. I liked him bringing everybody together in that way.

Sergio Angelini: 10:28

So artifice isn't there? He's doing it. Yes. He knows we want to enjoy that.

Carolyn Daughters: 10:35

In a way. Yes, he knows his book is being written about it. So he's like everybody. Sergio, you had a passage you wanted to read.

Sarah Harrison: 10:46

Yes, before we got there.

Sergio Angelini: 10:49

It's not dramatic like wartime stories. It is something that I it's one of the scenes that I really like about it. And I'll, I'll give you a little anecdote that relates to the movie afterwards, if you don't mind. But let me read this first. That's why I picked it. Here we go. So this is from chapter two and section four, page 31 Esther replaced the syringe on the tray, blew out the spirit lamp and wiped the teaspoon clean. Well, darling, I think my work of mercy is over for the night. Yes, and thank you 1000 times, sweetie, for all you've done, they're expecting another in from resuscitation, and I don't know how I'd have managed without you. You're sure you're okay now, oh yes, perfectly, now that I've finally got the ward under control, that's the worst of these blessed air raids. They do unsettle the men, I suppose, Woody and I will have to plunge down to that moldy shelter, the one and only advantage of night duty is that you can stay above ground. Do you think we dare just go to bed and see if we can get away with it? My dear, last time Joan Pearson and Hibbert did that, the commander routed them out and drove them down to the shelter, just as they were. And now everybody knows that Hibbert goes to bed in her vest and knickers. Well, we don't go to bed in our vests and knickers. Com is welcome to drive me forth in my Jaeger pajamas. I hope Woody's got some tea. Have some here. Esther, before you go. No, no, I'd better go over to quarters. She'll be wondering what's happened to me. Good night, darling. God bless happy, sheltering. Said Frederica. She added, with rarely spoken sympathy, you do look tired, my dear, and I'm afraid it's my fault. I came over and gave her a beef brief little peck of apology and gratitude. That's the end of that awful lot of dears and darlings and little kisses and things, which I think is lovely. What I was gonna say was, is that it's an interesting little moment, but when they were making the film version, which came out couple of years later, and is very interesting for being extremely faithful, but moves it two years forward, so it moves it to the doodlebug campaign. So in other words, the v1 rockets, which would and which is in keeping with modern warfare, in fact. So you've got that horrible thing where the so-called buzz bombs, so that the whistled above you, and then if the whistle stopped, if they the engine stopped, then you knew it was going to drop, I was going to land on you. So it's not the Blitz, not necessarily typical wartime stories, so you're back out in the country again. You're not in it's not the London Blitz, and instead, it's two years later. And that gives it a different feeling, because you get these scenes where they're all worried, but they can hear these things flying over. It's like drone warfare today, of course, and that gives it a very different sort of tempo, which is more dramatic, if you will, because there's anticipation built in. But what was interesting was the guy who made it, who wrote and corrected it, a guy called Sidney Gilead, who's an incredibly experienced writer and director. He wrote, for instance, the screenplay for The Lady Vanishes with his partner, Frank Lauder, a well established guy. And he was working right into the 1970s he loved the book, but was not a fan of who done it. And he really considered the possibility of just taking out the who done it element entirely, and just making it a film about these characters. And I think, you know what? You can't say that, but a lot, and it's, I mean, I think he couldn't make it work. He couldn't he couldn't be faithful, which he wanted to be, and somehow extract that, and just have it about their lives and what happens. And one imagines that these cocky might not have been in it, and perhaps certain things would have happened a bit in the background. You would have heard about them, but you wouldn't, you wouldn't had the dramatic Roundup. You wouldn't have had all these things. And it's an interesting idea, but I find that fascinating, because I think there can't be too many books this type where one would even consider it as a viable.

Carolyn Daughters: 14:47

Does it then become a "will they, won't they" love story with Freddie and Barney? What would the film?

Sergio Angelini: 14:56

What is it become? No, no. It's actually very, very faithful. So it's there.

Carolyn Daughters: 15:01

But what would it have like if you take the mystery out, what is the thread through?

Sergio Angelini: 15:09

Yeah, the arc. It would absolutely it would be about the fact that it would be that love triangle, but then you would have another love triangle, and then you would maybe have the old guy, the old Moon character, the old guys, and that mean, it's probably my age, I'm not going to comment, Moon worried about his son. And you would have focused on the feelings of the characters. Would have contrasted, I think the humor, the stoic element of putting up with the terrible stuff, the rotten food, the fear of dying, all these things that are in wartime stories. And it would have been that, and you might have said, Did you hear somebody got knocked off, but I think they would have extracted it. I think, let's say higgins's death would have, would have remained unexplained. But there were commercial filmmakers, to be absolutely clear, I think it was just that him saying, I don't, and this, I get, it's probably something to do with this idea that who done it, particularly with a movie is somehow seen as, and certainly at the time, a little bit declare, say, and those were filmmakers who were interested in making interesting, unusual films that were about real people. They done a film called millions like us, which was about women in the war, and it's got a 100% basically female cast, and again, made during the war, of course. So there's a different ETHEL. So these are very smart guys, but they had good, strong commercial instincts. So they wanted to make something that would work, but at the same time, they didn't want to do something that felt formulaic. But the way Christianna Brand had written it, I think the way they describe it, I say they because it Frank Sydney gilliatt wrote work, usually in partnership with a chap called Frank launder. He didn't on this film, but it's their company. But it was this idea that she'd structured it so carefully that you couldn't really extract it. Check it out. Well, you couldn't keep the character beats. You needed it to make certain things happen to the characters. And it's like we were saying about the end because, you the way that, the way that the actor, the various main characters stick together against Inspector Cockrill, right, is an interesting theme. And I think that, in a way, it's controversial. I think people have different opinions about that.

Carolyn Daughters: 17:44

Green for Danger isn't like a lot of other wartime stories. At its core, it's a murder mystery. We're dancing around a couple things here, not intentionally, but because the conversation is so interesting. But there's a murderer in this book. We are a spoiler podcast. So this is your warning. Should have read it. Esther Sanson is this Madonna-like, angelic woman, like, let's talk about a couple things that I want to make sure we discuss in this podcast episode. Let's talk about Esther. Let's talk about motivation. Let's talk about whether we saw it on the page. Could we have figured it out? Like, was there fair play here? How clever was Christianna Brand in in the disguising or revelation of the murderer? Like so let's start with Esther. Sarah, what are your thoughts about Esther Samson?

Sarah Harrison: 18:45

Well, and I want to tie it to what Sergio was just saying and how hard it is to extract the fact that a murder took place, right? Because what was strike to me about Esther doing it is they all seem to accept it still, and still be on her side a little bit, and still understand her. And even at the end, they're talking after Esther's dead, and out of it, they're talking about, like, still who she was as a person and how much they loved her, and how this fit together, or that didn't fit together, and she's still like one of the gang. She just went a little bit off her rocker. These wartime stories shake people's foundations. And they even talk about their new roommates, right? They're talking about, well, now I have to room with this person, and they're not as good as the original gang. So it diverges a little bit from your question, but Esther being the murderer is almost like a linchpin for how their friendships work together and how they still feel about each other. It's that backdrop that illustrates their friendship. It's very interesting to me how Christianna Brand wrote that.

Carolyn Daughters: 20:06

We learn early on that there's a murder of this nurse Sister Marion Bates. We don't like her all that much, and we're not meant to, I would argue a little bit. So, that's my question. What if Esther's first murder had been Freddie or Barney or so is part of the reason why they still feel connected to her. She didn't kill any of the core group. Sergio, are you following where I'm going with this?

Sergio Angelini: 20:46

I completely get where you're going. And I think on the one hand, it's the classic Agatha Christie thing, isn't it? You kill off the person nobody likes, so that you have lots of suspects here. She doesn't actually do that. You eventually find out that there are surprising motives why Higgins might want to be bumped off. I mean, let's not forget, Higgins is the first one to get killed.

Carolyn Daughters: 21:12

To be fair, I had actually forgotten that.

Sergio Angelini: 21:18

Joseph Higgins, sorry, mate, but absolutely in a way, he's an insignificant figure, and yet he's right front and center in the first scene. But yet he's thinking, but why? And yet, because it isn't that kind of book, it's not because it's a fair question to ask. Then when we get to when he dies. Nobody thinks he's been killed, because they keep thinking, well, he couldn't be killed. What would the motive be? In wartime stories, you don't expect a mailman to be murdered in a hospital. And then Inspector Cockrill turns up, and they have to go through all this stuff about all the cylinders. And was he given the wrong mixture? Was it too much oxygen? Was it too much nitrous oxide? So on and so forth. And as a reader, my eyes are glazing over at that point, because I'm not a scientist. I'm a humanities guy, and I suspect that that's an intended effect, right? Most people are supposed to go, do I really have to plow through the science, you know? I don't understand it anyway, so I'm sure Inspector Cockrill is right. You just you read past that, and it's great because you're missing a couple of clues. So, points to Christianna Brand. She's doing an activist type thing. But when you're Agatha Christie, you then will knock off someone who everybody doesn't like, because then you don't have the sympathy problem. You're knocking off usually the rich, powerful, nasty person who's made enemies of everyone. Now, in this case, Marion Bates. And by the way, I was, I would love to think that Robert Block, when he wrote Psycho, had read this and decided that you would have his character. His main character is called Marion, who goes to the Bates Motel. However, I can't prove this. I just think that's amusing. Anyway, she doesn't die in the shower, but she gets a really spooky death, and is one of the strengths in Green for Danger, because she does not deserve this. She's hunted and killed by someone for no good reason whatsoever. Yet somehow we're supposed to slightly overlook it, because, in the classic fashion, she's someone who everybody found difficult. The odd thing is, of course, is that she and Esther are the two characters who, in theory, you should have the most sympathy for because they're the ones who have suffered in their own way. Now you could be you can make disparaging comments as, oh, they're neurotic, they're this, they're that. But you think, Well, no, hang on, they both have a tough time in different ways. One of them isn't handling it terribly well. She's being a bad, bad person. Because she's being clingy and difficult and giving, giving Javas a hard time. Not that he doesn't deserve it. But equally, you think, actually, I can slightly see his point of view, because it's too much, he's saying, I don't care about what you about you? What on earth do you expect me to do? It's facial attraction. I mean, is you gonna start boiling his bunnies? So hopefully not. But the thing is, is that it doesn't get to that. So she definitely doesn't deserve it. She doesn't do anything that transgressive. All she says is, I know who did it, and that's it. Her fate is sealed. You'd think that's cold blooded. That's not done, but out of sense of justice. And they do in the book in particular, they do pass over that Christianna Brand is quite cunning about that. But when you get the scene, the big wrap up scene at the end isn't Cockrill does his wrap up scene, but then we get the emotional wrap up scene between the main characters, so we get the clues and how I got there and but then we get the main characters, and we get their reaction and what it means to them. And at some level, he's thinking it's weird. They just talking about it like it happened to somebody else, because they've moved on. I mean, X amount of time has passed. It didn't hadn't happened yesterday. So there's that. But the reality is, is that it's telling you something about them as well. Actually, then up to a certain. Point, probably slightly tough, maybe hardened, even bunch of characters, I think the beloved, Woody notwithstanding, I think they're all a little bit hard to pierce as characters. And I think that in a good way to to really get to grits with as people who you'd really want to connect with. I wouldn't want to have them as close friends, necessarily. They're okay. I don't want anyone to die. And the fact that they're not that bothered bothers me slightly. But it seems to me that that's something that one has to consider. And yet, at the same time, the way it's written. The book excuses everyone. It doesn't excuse what happens to Bates. They do gloss over it and but they try and look at it from Esther's point of view. Yes, that is unusual. That's very unusual. Because if Bates, if Bates had been this terrible person, you wouldn't feel so bad. So I think you're meant to be, I don't know, a bit ambivalent, but the emphasis isn't there. And it's like, when with the murder when, when you get the murder scene in, and then, then they recreate it. So again, the classic scenario, right? And it's all about, how can this have happened, making it rather unconventional as far as wartime stories go. So on the one hand, yes, it's an impossible mystery. Oh, okay, I know where I am. It's that kind of book. If this were a John Dickson Carr book or an Ellery Queen book, and I love those books, John Dickson Carr is my favorite of that era. I'm a huge fan. But that if Carr had written it, the emphasis would have been so much, from the point of view of Inspector Cockrill saying, How can this have happened? How could it have been done? You get none of that. Not really. The emphasis lies elsewhere. But Christianna Brand was huge friends with John Dickson Carr they knew each other really well. She went to parties with Carr's wife and went over to their place for dinner, that kind of stuff. So it's one of those things where, I think, members of the detection club at the same time, and Martin, who's written the introduction to the addition that you've got, Carolyn, he's, written a book about the detection club. You know, Martin Edwards.

Carolyn Daughters: 27:14

Martin Edwards, yes.

Sergio Angelini: 27:17

Sorry, I think that's so interesting.

Carolyn Daughters: 27:20

No, it definitely is. I didn't feel that Marian Bates's murder was justified in Green for Danger. But I did feel like because she wasn't the best liked member of this group, and was one layer outside of the core group that they could become philosophers about it by the end of the book, whereas, if it had been a member of their core group, they might have addressed it differently. I don't know. I mean, Sarah, how do you feel about that?

Sarah Harrison: 27:54

I felt a little bit like they were trauma bonded, if that makes sense, as happens in some wartime stories. Like what Sergio was saying, it's like, maybe I wouldn't pick these for my best friends. They are a little bit callous. They are loving each other's best parts and dismissing each other's worst parts. But also, they were the first people that they met, like when you first go to college, or you first go to a new events, and how many people are still in touch with their college roommates? Because you just went to this whole new thing. And in this case, it was a war, and it's the most intense of circumstances as is the case in wartime stories, and they were each other's first people, and so they were still stuck there. I pulled the passage, if you don't. There's so many good passages I want to I've, like, just stuck with an underline. But it was about Marion Bates again. And it was, it was the big fight where you see it all unravel for her, said, but she looked at him, that's Eden with blue eyes, stupid with pain and misery, defeating her own hopes by her uncontrollable need to put those hopes into words all the same. Gervase, I won't let you go. I'll tell everybody how you've treated me. I'll tell everybody how you're letting me down for that Linden girl. I'll make you stay with me, which is just the worst example of what maybe a lot of people have felt. But we never want to say, just her uncontrollable need to put her hopes into words, and you've just put yourself in this impossible position. And it was at that moment that I was like, Ah, poor child. Poor thing.

Sergio Angelini: 29:47

I'll tell you something else as well as that looking at characters that you may or may not identify with, but with, enough with, with Barnes, he says that thing about, would I rather be betrayed or. Or to lie to you and so on. So they get well, right? Must admit, as I don't know about YouTube, but as a guy, I totally related to that, absolutely had a conversation like that in my life, in my youth, donkey's years ago, so I could connect with that. And I think that's what comes out so well, also before we before we finish things, just to get back to the movie, just because I've tried to tease you so that you will go see the movie.

Carolyn Daughters: 30:28

Oh, we're gonna. We will.

Sergio Angelini: 30:30

I'll tell you one thing that they do, which, again, is a classic thing of using an audio visual tool to do something that works even better in film as it then it would on the page. Let's just put it this way, Woody in terms of her backstory. She doesn't have a brother, she has a twin sister.

Sarah Harrison: 30:49

That actually makes more sense.

Sergio Angelini: 30:52

So stuff like that, they really do some good things. It's a great movie. But they also do some very smart bits of, oh, what would be really cool.

Carolyn Daughters: 31:02

Yes, because her voice is potentially mistaken for her brother's voice, who was a Goebbels apologist. I don't know if I'm saying his name correctly, who was an apologist on the radio. And so as a reader, I had to go back a couple times, and I was like, Am I missing something here? Like, how similar is her voice to her brothers, or how that it would trigger a response by this guy in the operating theater. Exactly. It was that discernible. I'm like, how, how deep is her voice, or I don't know. So Did, did in reading this book? Did, did the two of you know Esther was the murderer? At what point did you know? Did you know when it was revealed to everybody on the page? And you're like, Oh my God. Or were you did you have sneaking suspicions? Or did your suspicions keep going one direction another? Because the red herrings, there are many of them in Green for Danger, which makes it one of the great wartime stories and wartime mysteries.

Sarah Harrison: 32:16

Well, I like what Sergio was saying about that, where, if this was a John Dickson Carr, it would be like, how did this happen? But in this instance, it's not masked by the impossibility. It's masked by the relationships. And so that's what got me the really, and I think that was the point, I was, I did think, like, really, the only one with like, a motive is Esther, but she's, like, ready to marry this guy. So I guess it's not her. And so I was, I was fooled by that relationship aspect. How about you guys?

Sergio Angelini: 32:44

Me completely, I must admit I, I don't, I don't, I don't about you too. I, I tend. I'm not one of those readers who really competes The only, the only time that happens is when I think it's not a very good book, which case I'm not really enjoying it and I'm just going to plow through as I'm going to beat you at your game because, see, you're rubbish. I saw right through that, I knew I didn't respect you. Totally happened to me with a Ngaio Marsh book called false scent, which is terrible anyway.

Sarah Harrison: 33:11

But that's not the Ngaio Marsh book we're doing, right?

Sergio Angelini: 33:14

Good. No, it's from now. It's really bad.

Carolyn Daughters: 33:18

We are reading Died in the Wool by Ngaio Marsh. I thought it was very fun. I really enjoyed it. It's set in New Zealand, so we have a new setting. Green for Danger and Died in the Wool are very different wartime stories, I have to say. So, no, readers do not be put off by this. Ngaio Marsh is lovely, lovely.

Sergio Angelini: 33:33

You can cut all that out. Sorry. But what I was say was, No, I was what I want from a book is because I'm not competing with a book that I think is great, like this one, I want to be taken for a ride, and then when I get to the ending, it has to make sense, and I want to know that all the clues were there. It doesn't bother me one bit. Obviously, it's that great thing. Oh, I should have seen that, and I didn't. They're thinking, oh, you're so clever. You got me. I want to be fooled. I don't want to get it. I want to be fooled. So I absolutely thought, towards the end, you think it's Moon. And deep down, I was a little disappointed, because I thought, okay, I'm all right with it. And then it wasn't hurrah.. So that was great. Now, does it make sense that he somehow magically had a potion that would stop her from killing herself, and he just happened to have it handy in a syringe, all filled up and good to go. No, I don't buy that for a minute.

Carolyn Daughters: 34:31

But then Inspector Cockrill also, I think, knocks it out of his hand.

Sergio Angelini: 34:35

That's the funny bit. But what are the odds of him having the right syringe? So I always think that's slightly bogus anyway.

Sarah Harrison: 34:42

Lying that they knew it was Esther earlier, and like Moon knew she was gonna offer herself, and they were suspicious.

Carolyn Daughters: 34:51

Moon knew, I'm almost certain Moon knew. Moon knew.

Sergio Angelini: 34:55

But I think you walking around with a syringe full of strychnine for the last three days on the off chance. He's gonna have an accident. Let's face it, he's gonna be sorry if he injects himself, straightening but no, I mean, it works, and again, it's nice, because it makes Inspector Cockrill look like he's made a silly mistake, although, let's face it, if they'd filled him in, maybe things would have gone a little differently. But okay, but it's a nice ironic touch, and I will say is my own real criticism of that part of the story. There is a very long gap between Cockrill saying, I know who did it. And reaching that point, when you actually get there, it's so long, 40 pages or something. And it's too long. It's too long, and I don't know.

Carolyn Daughters: 35:40

It's longer than 40 pages. I didn't want to be mean, it's really quite early. And he says, I know who the murderer is, and I know why the murder was committed. And so as readers, we're supposed to be like, Okay, great. And then there's this whole long interlude of scenes happening. So that threw me. It becomes less like wartime stories and even less like mystery stories and more like a character study. Inspector Cockrill is waiting for someone to screw up.

Sergio Angelini: 36:05

I don't know why it's there. I couldn't afterwards, in a reread, I haven't re read it, before chatting with you two. And as you'd say, of course, I first read it a very long time ago. So trying to remember, when you asked me had at the time I think, well, that was like 1983 so entirely. So, I mean, I remember thinking the bike bit was clever that I remember. And I remember thinking that I thought it was Moon, but that's it. Anything else is beyond my ability to recollect, and I've read it since then, and obviously, in a different way, I've seen the movie several times, so they get mixed up, so I can't probably answer it, but that on the reread, I suddenly thought, Look, there's nothing wrong with what she's writing here. I just don't know why it's here. Actually, this is an odd decision. It's almost like somebody said to you, no, no, you're under length. You need to have another 40 pages, because otherwise I don't know what the point is.

Carolyn Daughters: 37:07

You have the detective there, so maybe he could have been introduced later in the book, but to have him there, maybe it's to make him seem not omniscient, but he really under Like I see the big picture, I see it, and the story seems to play out as if all of these other things have to happen, because he doesn't. He doesn't have any hard evidence. So as readers, with his being my first Inspector Cockrill novel, I'm thinking, Okay, does he really know? And I thought, okay, probably. He probably does. But I grappled with why he wasn't able to reveal it in any clear way. And then at the end, we have all the characters gathered together in the operating theater, which is much more in the vein of Golden Age mystery stories than wartime stories. It's a very dramatic, or melodramatic sort of scene. I enjoyed it, and I was thrilled to spend more time with the characters, but I was a little confused by the way the story was plotted.

Sergio Angelini: 38:08

It's the only thing, though, it's the only criticism I can make. I think that it comes back to this idea that it makes you question Cocky's role and Cocky his function, but also Cocky his success. And I find that interesting. But this isn't Anthony Berkeley Cox. This isn't The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley Cox where he actually, basically, doesn't get it right. This isn't some kind of explosion of the detective myth or something like that, because there are books like that, where they screw it up and you find out an Epilog who really did it okay, but no, it's not. It doesn't want to do that. It's not aiming for that. So I remain slightly baffled. It doesn't hurt it that badly. It's a great book, but it's just odd. The film cuts all that out just saying,

Carolyn Daughters: 39:05

I have to say just as we're closing this because somehow we've come to the end of another episode. I don't know how I really enjoyed this book. I just thought it was fun and funny. Like, funny a little bit funny. Like, Georgette Heyer is funny. Just really, just like smiled at a lot of the descriptions throughout the book. I thought it was really charming.

Sergio Angelini: 39:30

It's very droll, isn't it? I it actually made me think a bit of, actually more like Evelyn Waugh, maybe from the 20s, almost, bright young things, almost, except we're talking wartime stories now. But I really, absolutely enjoyed, and as I say, having just been a little mean about Ngaio Marsh before one of the things well, more than a little mean, I guess, but, but I do like all the character stuff in her books, and again, that that witty banter, that that realistic sense of I. Amusing people being amusing with each other. Thinking, no, I'm really enjoying being here. Absolutely agree with you.

Sarah Harrison: 40:08

From a survey perspective, we've this period in England's history, being extremely intense. It's shown up in multiple books. Now, multiple books, even just our last book, it's, it's fascinating to me, and it makes a lot of sense, but even just my kids, current favorite movie right now is bed knobs and broomsticks, which I have, you guys have seen it, but it's about, I have World War Two. Fight to fight the Nazis and the Blitz in London, in this man. This shows up everywhere. It's the subject for everything. But it's a great perspective, I think, a great take on this time period.

Carolyn Daughters: 40:55

I loved it. I had never heard of Christianna Brand. I'm thrilled that we included her and that we read this book, and it does fit in line with Margery Allingham's Traitor's Purse or The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene. We were getting a bit of wartime stories, wartime exposure, which is appropriate. The book was published in 1944.

Sarah Harrison: 41:16

Well, Sergio, it's been delightful having you on. I could ask a bunch more questions, but I know we've got to wrap we're time constrained today, but thank you so much for joining us.

Sergio Angelini: 41:27

It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for inviting me. It's been really great.

Sarah Harrison: 41:32

Everyone. Check out his podcast, tipping my fedora. Are you on all platforms?

Sergio Angelini: 41:37

I'm all over the place.

Sarah Harrison: 41:39

Wonderful, wonderful. So go check his workout.

Carolyn Daughters: 41:44

Thank you, Sergio.

Sergio Angelini: 41:46

Thank you all the best.

Carolyn Daughters: 41:49

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.

Sarah Harrison: 41:59

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Carolyn Daughters: 42:23

Thanks for joining us on our journey through the history of mystery. Until next time, stay mysterious.