Giant's Bread

London's new opera house celebrates its grand opening with a new opera called The Giant.  Carl Bowerman, a distinguished and elderly art critic, does not like the new opera.  He joins the opera house owner, Sebastien Levinne, for a drink.  Bowerman points out that Boris Groen, the composer of the opera, has a similar style to Vernone Deyre, a composer who was killed in the First World War.

Vernon, who grew up in the Victorian era, was the son of a soldier father, Walter, and an emotionally clingy mother.  He was raised largely by his nurse.  While Vernon had no friends, he had four imaginary friends who lived on the grounds, the most important of which was Mr. Green.  Vernon's Uncle Sydney, who has a manufacturing business in Birmingham, makes him feel uncomfortable while Walter's sister, who plays the grand piano in his house, gives him a good feeling.  

Aunt Ninas marriage breaks up making her a single mom to Josephine.  In the meantime, Walter goes off to fight in the Boer War.  Aunt Nina dies and Myra takes in Josephine to the delight of Vernon who now has a playmate.  A new family comes to town named Levinne who are held in disdain because they are Jewish.  However, in time the Levinne's are accepted by the locals.  Vernon and Josephine make good friends with their son, Sebastien.  

In the meantime, Walter is killed in action and Vernon is set to inherit the family estate when he comes of age.  Myra and Josephine, short on money, move to Birminghamm to be close to Uncle Sydney.  Elven years pass in which Vernon and Sebastien remain friends.  Sebastien's father dies and he inherits millions, but Vernon continues to be short on money.  He goes to work at Uncle Sydney's manufacturing firm.  In the meantime, he is invited to a charity concert at Albert where he has a life changing moment:  he starts to love music and decides to become a composer.

Vernon meets up with Nell Vereker, an old school chum from Cambridge, and they fall in love.  However, both Nell's mother and Vernon's Uncle Sydney think that he is not rich enough for Nell and convince him to postpone marriage.  In the meantime, Vernon starts seeing a woman ten years his senior named Jane who encourages him to pursue his music and quit the manufacturing firm.  Vernon's bites the bullet and proposes to Nell who, to spite him, runs off and gets engaged to another man.  Vernon in turn runs into the arms of Jane.  

Four days after the outbreak of World War I, Nell and Vernon meet again and she admits that she is still in love with him.  They are married later that afternoon after she finds out that Nell has enlisted.  Six months later, Vernon goes off to war and Nell becomes a VAD nurse.  However, later she finds out that Vernon has been killed in action.  As his widow she inherits his estate and sells the property.  Her former flame, George, buys it, proposes marriage and she accepts.

In neutral Holland in 1917, Vernon has escaped from a German prisoner of war camp.  He reads a magazine and discovers that Nell has remarried.  Despondent, he throws himself in the path of an oncoming truck.  He survives, but suffers amnesia.   Vernon becomes a chauffeur and meets a wealthy American who is visiting England.  The American introduces him to a friend who in turn leads him to his wife, Nell.  She gets him professional help and he declares he wants to get back together.  Nell, frightened, lies and says she is pregnant by George.

In the meantime, Vernon and Jane reunite and travel to Russia where he is taken by the avant-garde music.  A telegram from New York stating that Josephine is gravely ill sends them sailing across the Atlantic.  The ship, hit by an iceberg, starts to sink.  In the commotion, Vernon spots Nell who begs him to save her.  Vernon grabs Nell as Jane, with a horrified look on her face, goes "down into that green swirl."  In New York, Vernon confesses to Sebastian that he let the love of his life drown.  Torn by emotion, he puts his heart and soul into a composition and the result is The Giant.

http://www.agathachristie.com/stories/giants-bread

The Seven Dials Mystery

Agatha Christie brings some of her characters back from the novel Mystery of Chimneys in this new novel including Lady Eileen Brent, Lord Caterham, Bill Eversleigh, George Lomax, Tredwell and Superintendent Battle.  The Marquess of Caterham rents out her manor house at Chimneys to a self made millionaire named Sir Oswald Coote.  A party of young people are also staying which includes three young women and five young men.  One of the men, Gerald "Gerry" Wade, has a bad habit of sleeping in.  Therefore the other young people buy eight alarm clocks, set each one for a different time, and place them in Gerry's room.

In the morning, despite all of the alarm clocks having rung, Gerry has not risen.  He is found dead in his bed of a chloral overdose.  Tow of the young men, Jimmy and Ronny, drive over to Gerry's stepsister, Loraine's, house to break the bad news.  They return to Chimneys where they search Gerry's room and find only seven alarm clocks.  The missing one is found in the bushes at Chimneys.

Lord Caterham retakes possession of Chimneys.  His daughter, Lady Eileen "Bundle" Brent, puzzled about the crime, writes a letter to Bill Eversleigh.  It turns out that Gerry died in her bedroom.  In her writing desk she finds an unfinished letter from Gerry to Loraine.  In it, he states:  "Forget what I said about the Seven Dials business."  She decides to visit Bill in London.  On the way, a stranger jumps out of the bushes in front of her car.  She gets out as the stranger collapses to the ground, muttering "Seven dials...Jimmy Thesiger."  Bundle manages to get him in her car and take him to the doctor where he's pronounced dead-- not from Bundle's car but from a gunshot wound.

The dead man is identified as Ronny, one of the young men at the party.  IN the meantime, George Lomax receives a warning letter from the Seven Dials district of London.  Bundles gets Jimmy's address in London and goes to break the news to him.  Loraine is also present.  Jimmy and Loraine reveal Ronny could have had ties to the Mafia.  Loraine says that she discovered a list of names and dates together with an adress in Seven Dials.  The three wonder if the missing alarm clock, leaving seven alarm clocks, was a warning left by the killer.

Bundle discovers that the Seven Dials is a seedy nightclub.  She begs Bill to take her there.  At the club, she recognizes the doorman as the former footman at Chimneys.  She questions the doorman who tells her that a Russian named Mosgorovsky offered him three times the pay to work at the nightclub.  Mosgorovsky also supplied a replacement for the footman, a man named John Bauer.  The doorman shows Bundle a secret room with seven chairs.  Bundle hides in a closet and eavesdrops on a meeting among seven people, all with white hoods with slits and clock faces.  One member of the group talks about the upcoming party at Wyvern Abbey where a German named Everhard will be there with a new invention.

Bundle later learns that the invention is one that makes wire as strong as steel.  Everhard is about to present the invention to the British at the party.  Bundle and Jimmy wrangle invitations to the party where the find Superintendent Battle disguised as a waiter.  Jimmy goes to the library to check something out.  Bundle is told to stay in her room, but sneaks out the window and down the trellis to be a part of the action.  Looking for Jimmy she hears a scuffle on the balcony outside the library and two gunshots.

Battle runs to the library where he finds Jimmy wounded and unconscious.  Sir Stanley runs to his room where he finds the invention formula missing.  Sir Oswald Coote arrives saying he was on a walk and discovered the gun.  The next morning Battle searches the crime scene and finds one set of footprints leading up to where the gun was discovered -- Sir Oswald Coote's.  He also finds a charred glove with teeth marks in the fireplace.  Jimmy gets closer to Lady Coote's and receives an invitation from Lady Coote to their new house in Letherbury where he hopes to investigate Sir Oswald Coote.

Jimmy rings up Bundle and Loraine and tells them to meet him and Bill at the Seven Dials Club.  Jimmy arrives, having left Bill in the car.  Bundle shows him the secret room.  In the meantime, Bill is knocked unconscious in the car.  Bundle goes looking for brandy for Bill and is also knocked out.  Mogorsky takes them to a meeting of the Seven Dials where the identity of Number 7 is revealed;  it's Superintendent Battle.  The Seven Dials is a secret group of criminal catcher and included Gerry Wade and Ronny Devereux.

It turns out that the secret formulae thief was Jimmy Thesiger, along with his accomplice Loraine, both of whom have just been arrested.  Ronny was killed when he got too close to the truth.  HIs last words were a warning to the Seven Dials about Jimmy, not the other way around.  Jimmy climbed on the ivy and threw the stolen formula down to Loraine.  He staged a fight in the library where he shot himself in the right arm.  His right arm being disabled, he had to use his teeth to pull off his glove which he tossed in the fireplace.

The Seven Dials Mystery circa 1929 courtesy https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Christie-Mysteries-Collection-Paperback/dp/0062074164.

J.K. Rowling: "Never Happier Than When She was Reading"

"I was never happier than when reading or writing." (J. K. Rowling)

In 1993, J. K. Rowling was a divorced mother of a little girl and living on welfare with the dream of publishing a book about a wizard.  Today, she is married with three children, and thanks to her Harry Potter franchise, the first billionaire writer.  What was her secret to success?  Reading.

J. K. Rowling claimed that "I was never happier than when reading or writing."  Growing up in

Scotland, she read Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse, Paul Gallico's Manxmouse and C. S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, to name a few.  The voracious reader based her Harry Potter character Hermione Granger on 11 year old self.  Her personality lent itself to retreating into a fictional world.

While Rowling loved to read, she was never the ideal student.  While she wrote the entrance exam for Oxford, she was turned down and settled for Exeter University instead where she studied French and the Classics.  

On a train ride from Manchester to London, Rowling wrote the first draft for Harry Potter.  It would be the start of a five year plot outline which would be sidetracked by the death of a her mother.  Looking for a change, Rowling moved to Portugal to teach English for a year.  There she met, married and gave birth to a little girl.  

The marriage turned sour, however, and Rowling returned to Scotland divorced and unemployed.  She continued work on her manuscript, however, on an old manual typewriter.  She would write in cafes while her little girl slept.  Rowling presented Harry Potter to twelve publishers, all of whom turned it down.  When she sent it to Bloomsbury Press, however, the publisher gave it to his 8 year old daughter to read.  She was left wanting more.  Bloomsbury offered her a contract, recommending that she change her name from Joanne to J. K. (K. for her grandmother Kathleen) so as not to scare off her young male audience.  

Rowling's book contract for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was a big first step.  However, her publisher warned her not to quit her day job.  Yet, it led to a successful series which generated $20 billion in revenue and sold almost 500 million copies in 73 languages.  Rowling's inspiration, The Chronicles of Narnia, has sold 65 million copies.

    

http://www.amillionlives.net/jk-rowling-biography.html