"Rather odd to enter a drawing room carrying a large luminous cod"

Having a hard time with The Man Who Knew Too Much.  Maybe it's that Hitchcock made two movies with that title and I hadn't bothered to look up anything else. I mean, Hitchcock, right? That has to have some good horridness to it.

So I'm expecting something like this...

With some of this:

And maybe a bit of this:

In other words, I was not prepared for the series of quiet short stories that the book really is. So my reaction was more like this:

These are short and unhorrid stories surrounding a man who can manage to deduce the real culprit, but because of various reasons, the killer is never brought to any kind of justice.  So the stories, while they have a 'detective' putting the clues together, are not fully satisfying.  They have a tendency to put me to sleep at night instead of keeping me awake ravenously turning pages--or hitting the page turn button as the case may be.

There are no real inquiries into the crimes, no tension, and no danger.  Just a telling of a puzzle and an answer to a question that is solved, but never rectified.  I like the idea of the politics and the reasons why the killer often gets away in order to keep worse consequences from occurring due to the politics, but could there be the occasional hint of suspense and some amount of justice along with our commentary on how justice isn't really just?  Please?

What I will give Chesterton is some great lines.  The title of this post is one of them.  Here are a few more gems:

Harold March was the sort of man who knows everything about politics, and nothing about politicians.

"I think I can manage to be a sort of fourth-rate burglar."

Such people seldom reject anything nonsensical, for they are always seeking for something new.

He had a talent for appearing when he was not wanted and a talent for disappearing when he was wanted, especially when he was wanted by the police.

I think I will eventually read all the stories, but more on my own time, not for the blog.  No OHMYGOD moments. So, I'm going to move on to other things with more gore and terror and suspense.

So, here is my updated list of reading.