The Darkwater Hall Mystery by Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis, author of Stanley And The Women http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/02/stanley-and-women-by-kingsley-amis-10.html and more than another seventeen mesmerizing novels - 10 out of 10

 

The Darkwater Hall Mystery by Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis, author of Stanley And The Women http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/02/stanley-and-women-by-kingsley-amis-10.html and more than another seventeen mesmerizing novels

10 out of 10

 

 

The Darkwater Hall Mystery is one of the short stories from the Collection that proves once again, if that was necessary, the inventivity, wide range of subjects (unlimited) which the Zen Master can write about and enchant his readers, this book has started with three stories that have military themes, My Enemy’s Enemy http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/11/magister-ludi-kingsley-amis-and-my.html was the first, exposing with humor the excesses of officers during World War II, and presumably before and after it

 

Court of Inquiry http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/11/court-of-inquiry-by-messiah-of-comedy.html presents the public with the case of a pompous Major Raleigh, who takes Frank Archer to the named Court, because the latter had left an engine behind, a piece of equipment that did not function, had no spare parts, while another, in good order, was available and had parts to spare…this was all just to ‘make a point’, but nonetheless, the symbolism was one of abuse of power, wasting time and energy for no good reason.

Moral Fiber http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/12/moral-fibre-by-magician-kingsley-amis.html changes tack, after I spy Strangers has ended the war miniseries, with an ersatz parliament that presents some outlandish, extreme views on the Soviet Union, which at that simulacrum of a parliamentary debate was embraced by one side as the fiend, nay, brother to have and hold on to, which is so outrageous.

 

We live on the wrong side of the old Iron Curtain (if this is not wrong, then Winston Churchill is the one that coined the term) and the next generation at the very least will still see the consequences of the system brought in by the soviet Big Brother, the descendant of which is now killing hundreds of thousands in Ukraine and elsewhere, an article in The Economist was talking about the deadly effect that this invasion started by the Butcher in the Kremlin will have on populations throughout Europe, with winter coming, prices of energy soaring, multitudes will die because they will lack the means to stay warm…

In a recent talk, the man who suffers from the Napoleon complex admitted that they attack the energy infrastructure of Ukraine, thus plunging one third or more of that wretched country into darkness and cold, with freezing temperatures now here to stay for months, pretending that the enemy has attacked that bridge to Crimea, and then some military basis in Russia, when what is expected of foes of the Kremlin is to just jump down and lay there, waiting for the ax to fall and behead them…

This is so atrocious, but let me just for the moment get back to the short stories, I was going to mention the Moral Fibre, just before the anger at Putin got the better of me (one of the very few comments I have on the blog http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world  states that I must be paid for displaying this aggression towards the Evil Empire, when in fact, I and the rest of this realm have paid so much for the benefit of communism, which they imposed here and I cannot help ranting on the subject, whenever there seems to be a ‘by the way’ and most often, when there is no connection with the topic at play) and expressed my chagrin

 

In moral fiber we have an unusual situation, for the social worker, Webster, is not the good personage, on the contrary, she is overwhelming, domineering, Pretentious and stifling with her arrogance and narcissism the ‘fallen woman, Betty, who is in The Zone, Flow, at her zenith when she is associated with the ‘business girls’, having coitus with sailors and making money, and not when she is taken back to the family, where she appears to be suffocating, she does not like it and she is unhappy and imprisoned…

Then we have the Science fiction stories, SF drink as some of them have been called, where Simpson is sent into the future, exploring what will have happened, one atomic war will have destroyed an area the size of Europe, vines, barley and other crops will have been annihilated and those who want a drink are reduced to using…shoe polish and other quite disgusting materials and techniques to get some alcohol, some will organize and found The Friends of Plonk, which is the title of one of these tales

 

Darkwater Hall Mystery offers readers a detective story, wherein we have doctor Watson on loan from Conan Doyle, and because Sherlock Holmes is missing, more likely because His Serenity Kingsley Amis has wished to change the focus, offer un changement, the good doctor is invited to prevent a murder from happening.

Lady Fairfax is a beautiful, unusual blonde young woman who seeks protection for her husband, Magistrate Harry Fairfax, who in the course of his duty had sentenced a poacher called Black Ralph, who will no doubt try to exact revenge, even if the reader (or at least the under signed ) is tempted to see other suspects.

 

As Doctor Watson arrives at the mansion of the lady, he meets a twin brother of Harry Fairfax, who complains that he was born only twenty minutes later, but this means he lost the house, property and everything else to his older sibling and bingo, one is tempted to say ‘now there is someone who could try to kill the magistrate and make it look like it was the poacher, who is getting anyway all the attention.

This is something they use in magic, that is how many (maybe most) tricks work, while we are focused on one hand or action taking place in one spot, the other hand is stealing wallets, pulling ‘tricks’…one compelling experiment shows this in practice, participants in this test had been told to count passes between two teams, which they did, but when they were asked about the gorilla in the room, they had no answer, albeit at one point in the game, somebody walked in the field, dressed as a gorilla…because the participants in the research had been focused on the task, they failed to notice something else…I thought this could be the case in this mystery, we watch for Black Ralph and somebody else steps in

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html