PD James vs Lee Child

I was partway through 61 Hours by Lee Child when I set off on  holiday, but had finished it within a couple of days. Fortunately there's a brilliant community bookshop in Lynton, so I had a browse and came out with A Taste For Death by PD James. I can't quite believe it, but this is the first of her books I've ever read. I can't even remember watching any of the TV adaptations with Ray Marsden as Adam Dalgliesh. (I've just Googled this and discovered that Martin Shaw played him in later series; how did I miss that?!)

I was struck by huge differences between the two books, not just in content - Lee Child's Jack Reacher books are thrillers, rather than detective mysteries - but also in style. LC's books are pacy and full of short, tense sentences. 61 Hours opens with 'Five minutes to three in the afternoon. Exactly sixty-one hours before it happened.'  ATFD's opening sentence is 46 words long.

I gather from the back cover that PDJ wanted to be 'a serious novelist within the bonds of the genre', and certainly ATFD feels quite literary in tone. I'd go so far as to say I enjoyed the writing more than the story.

It felt curiously old-fashioned, though. When you read an Agatha Christie novel, you know it's going to be set way back when, but ATDF was first published in 1986. I know that's over 30 years ago, but this book doesn't reflect the mid-80s that I remember.

Two examples. The word 'beribboned' appears twice in two pages,  once to describe a basket of flowers and then on the next page to describe some women in a picture - and it caused me to stumble, mentally, because my brain initially interpreted it as 'berry boned'. Then there is a lengthy description of one of the female characters in which PDJ feels it necessary to point out 'She was hatless', as though that was somehow unusual. Really, in 1986?

I know some of you will think this is heretical, but I shan't read another Dalgliesh novel. Give me Jack Reacher any day.

If you don't mind which way up your scone is...

...why would you go to Cornwall when you could have Devon?

Mr T and I have been been to Lynton and Lynmouth for a week. Boy, it's beautiful. We rented a small flat in what had been Lynton Cottage, a former hotel, right on top of the hill overlooking the bay. Our flat was called the C S Lewis Balcony.  In 1925, he visited on a walk from nearby Brendon and had lunch there, declaring, 'The view from the balcony was beyond everything I have seen.' I have to agree: the pic here shows the view from our window. The rather tenuous link with the writer is also commemorated in the splendid lobby, where the quote is reproduced on a plaque that cleverly reflects the view.

There are other claims to literary fame. The cliff railway that connects the two villages was financed by Sir George Newnes, publisher of, amongst others, Titbits and The Strand Magazine; the Coleridge Way travels along the coast here 'in the Footsteps of the Romantic Poets', according to the promotional leaflet; it was from Lynmouth that Shelley and his wife and sister-in-law fled by boat to Wales, commemorated in the Shelley Hotel; and along the steep footpath that offers an alternative to the rail link there is a Poets Walk decorated with verses written by local people.

Despite having walked about 50 miles during our stay, I feel rested and restored. Even the M5 closure that impeded our progress home didn't spoil my serene mood. Tips on keeping it are welcome.