The Body on the Floor

The Secret Place by Tana Frech (A Dublin Murder Squad mystery)

2020-09-20T17:06:00.001-07:00

It's no secret that I love Tana French, both for her masterful plotting and eerie ability to adop different narrative voices and personas in her Dublin Murder Squad series.

Still, I must be honest and admit that although I did enjoy The Secret Place, it's not my favorite entry into the series, and I'm not entirely sure why.

The plot is intriguing enough. It's the resurrection of an unsolved cold case. A popular boy was murdered on the grounds of a posh boarding school for girls (he's a student at the obligatory adjacent boys' boarding school). The case is brought to Detective Stephen Moran by Frank Mackey's daughter, Holly. Now a teenager and a student at the boarding school, she proffers Moran an anonymous postcard claiming to know who killed the boy.

Painfully eager to get out of cold cases and into the Murder Squad, Moran brings the case to Detective Antoinette Conway, an island of ball-busting, angry feminist competence in a unit that's ostracized her. Neither detective can afford to fail, both for their professional sakes and because doing so will mean victory for the personal demons each respectively barely keeps at bay.

All the ingredients of a great contemporary mystery are present: an intense, slow-build of procedural tension over the period of basically 24-hours (except the flashbacks, of course), enough unexpected or simply unresolved character developments to keep even veteran armchair sleuths like myself guessing and engaged, and a truly well-done job giving a lot of characters, of different ages, very distinct personalities and voices (this is harder to do than most people realize; in my opinion, it's an ability that elevates writer from merely "good" to "great"). For fans of the series, you get to see how Frank Mackey's daughter has grown up after the events of Faithful Place, which is neat. As always, however, you don't need to read the other books in the series to appreciate this one.

And yet...

When I read Det. Conway was the protagonist of French's next entry into the series, I was glad because she is a wonderful character who I absolutely want to see more of (and so much the type of strong, takes-no-shit-from-anyone woman I wish my recovering people-pleaser self could be). But I also liked Det. Moran and felt Conway, by sheer force of personality, overshadowed him and the other characters, even though the novel is narrated from Conway's point of view. The strongest parts of the novel were in flashbacks of the Holley and her tight-knit circle of friends.

Which is, of course, one of the main strengths of the novel, the way French captured the intensity and intimacy of friendships at that age. Initially, I was worried it would rehash the vibe in The Likeness, which explores the family you find in friends in college. But though equally formative and intense, that type of friendship is, of course, an entirely different thing. I should've known better than to doubt Tana French; these friends, too, have their own feel and rhythm.

Overall, it's another successful installment in one of my favorite series. But it's not the best of the bunch, at least for me.

River of Darkness by Rennie Airth (A John Madden Mystery)

2018-11-19T21:58:00.001-07:00

Mystery readers know there's an important distinction between a mystery and a police procedural. The two genres often merge, usually bringing out the best of both, but however wonderful the center of that Venn diagram is the fact remains they are different things.

I began reading River of Darkness, the first John Madden mystery in the series, expecting a mystery and ending up enthralled in a just-one-more-page-on-my-thirty-minute-lunch-break police procedural that continually surprised me. Since police procedurals aren't generally my thing I've given a lot of thought as to why I loved this book so much.

First, it's an exceptionally well-done portrayal of England between the wars, when everyone -- survivors and those left to grieve alike -- are shrouded with ghosts of grief. Side tables have photos of long-dead, dull-eyed uniformed sons and brothers. Men struggle to make their way through life with missing limbs. The social chasm between those who could serve as soldiers and those who wished they could whispers beneath even the banalest social interactions.

And yet, there is a sense of newness and forward momentum, too. Cars are increasingly common. The emerging working class hankers for luxury buys like radios. Slowly but surely, people turn their eyes to the future by tilling the blood-stained soil, re-marrying or simply getting up and going to work.

So when a retired Colonel, his wife, and two staff members are brutally murdered in their Sussex manor, leaving their five-year-old daughter to be found cowering beneath the bed, the intrusion of violence on a village that's only recently found peace is especially jarring for the surrounding countryside.

Which is a solid premise for a good mystery but I'll admit the number of characters in the first thirty pages had me a bit worried. Most were inspectors of varying rank and jurisdiction and while that added a sense of realism to the setting I wasn't looking forward to lugging out a notebook to keep track of characters. Fortunately, Airth handles the multitude well, generally only dealing with a handful of characters at a time and working titles or formal salutations that serve as gentle reminders for the reader into the text.

Airth also takes the interesting tack of telling som of the story from the point of view of a minor, auxiliary character. The struggle of this junior officer, just out his police blues, to impress his superiors and overcome his inexperience is both compelling and, from a technical writing standpoint, a fun twist. Although I'm sure it's been done before, I hadn't come across this technique and enjoyed the change of pace from the usual protagonist only/objective third-person perspective usually used by authors.

The protagonist, John Madden, has been scarred by so much tragedy (even before surviving World War I) it almost crosses from pathos to eye-roll inducing. But here, too, Airth manages to pull back just in time. We are given a man who is as broken as Charles Todd's Ian Rutledge but has kept the kindness and compassion of Barbara Cleverly's Joe Sandilands.

And, unlike the latter two series, this series travels the path of redemption, hope, and healing. To say more would be to break my cardinal rule of no spoilers or plot re-writes, but it was interesting to see a character in this genre turn towards the light. It gave the story a nice bit of texture.

So we have a solid, intriguing murder with an unconventional modus operandi and a good protagonist. So far so good, but plenty of the mysteries I review have those. What pushed this book from merely a good read to a great one?

Here I'm forced to break my second rule of the blog and eschew objectivity and admit a personal bias. One of the main reasons I read historical fiction mysteries, particularly those that take place in early 20th century England, is because the mysteries must be solved using new criminology and forensics but no modern technology.

Which is why, as a police procedural, this book excels. Madden and his partner are hunting a serial killer before having the vocabulary to articulate what a serial killer is. They know they're hunting a madman, but convincing anyone else it's a particular type of madman presents a formidable challenge.

Superiors in Scottland Yard categorically refuse to entertain the notion of employing what we would call forensic psychology. Fingerprints are new (but used) and even the use of the car is a luxury and not guaranteed. Inspectors have to investigate multiple locations and communicate when the nearest phone is often literally miles away. Overcoming the bureaucracy of the War Office in an attempt to get records is hindered simply by where those records may be physically stored. Airth covers all of these challenges without over-explaining or overdoing it.

Another reason I enjoyed this book is that, like many mystery readers, I have a true crime penchant, specifically for serial killers. The way the First World War plays into this killer's modus operandi is fascinating, horrifyingly plausible and utterly gripping.

Again, I thought I was reading a mystery but found myself happily immersed in a well-plotted psychological thriller with suspense on par with that master of horror and psychological suspense, Alex Grecian.

Finally, although there is a resolution, much like in real life there aren't really any "winners" and even the final key to resolution is more luck than skill. But for all that, as I said, I simply couldn't stop turning the page.

Proof of Guilt by Charles Todd (An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery)

2018-08-19T18:43:00.001-07:00

The last two Ian Rutledge books left me a bit concerned. They weren't bad or anything. The writing was fine, the mysteries compelling; as always, the mother-and-son team of Charles Todd delivered an absorbing and atmospheric read. The characters were complex and internal and series-wide plot threads were worked well into the narrative.

And yet after reading Proof of Guilt I found myself vaguely wondering if this, one of my favorite Victorian mystery series ever, might be one I left one day. I couldn't quite put my finger on why, however.

Maybe it's me; perhaps my more recent bent towards cozies in general or new loves Tana French and Denise Mina were dampening my enthusiasm for Rutledge.

Perhaps it was Rutledge; surely he must heal at some point but, if he does, what of Hamish? But no, Rutledge on his own would be fine, too.

Regardless, I'm not one to give up on friends -- erm, fictional characters, ehem -- easily, so I was relieved when the standard vignette Todd opens all the books with completely captivated me. The setting -- pre- and post-World War I Maderia, Spain -- was fascinating, and it occurred to me maybe Rutledge (or rather, his readers) just needed a change of scenery.

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. I kept waiting for Rutledge to travel to Spain to investigate the prestigious French family, vintners with pedigree and relatively few secrets but plenty of the resentments and slights found in families the world over. As always in a Rutledge book, people's motivations are never quite clear and often result from complex emotions which, in my view, lends them more credibility than suspects tend to have in this genre, but we only got to see most of them in retrospect.

Despite this, I did enjoy the actual mystery, which was the lesser-used variant on the standard found-body formula (not a complaint; obviously, I love mysteries) of needing to deduce who the found body is in the first place. I must admit there's a nice little twist there.

Yet while this was a good read I'm forced to confess it wasn't a favorite, and for a rather shallow, superficial reason, too. I didn't like who the villain turned out to be -- sure, it was the less-expected suspect, and fit well into a the physical-combat climax (which was exceptionally well-written for an action scene that very easily could have been confusing and muddled), but I just plain didn't want it to be that person. The person who I did want it to be, granted, would've been obvious, but also in my opinion more compelling because of its plausibility.

The character development was strong, however. Rutledge's sister, specifically, has a bit more of a character-driven presence in this novel and I enjoyed that very much. And Rutledge does seem to be slowly but surely healing from his broken heart, though he is still very much a wounded man. Rutledge has a new boss I'm interested enough in to read more to suss him out and there's a new character with a background in intelligence, always a nice device in these kinds of series.

So, for now, I'll keep reading the series, though it may have bumped down in my rotation a few notches.

An Old Betrayal by Charles Finch (A Charles Lenox mystery)

2018-04-01T13:17:00.001-07:00

One of the best things about a mystery series -- or any genre series, I suppose -- is watching character plotlines progress throughout several books. Although many series' authors deliberately set up each book so it can be read as an independent installment, there is still something particularly satisfying about reading a snippet of dialogue and knowing it refers to some wider plot arc. It's a bit like finding an Easter egg in a video game or movie.

And so although there are many things to love about An Old Betrayal, the seventh Charles Lenox mystery series written by Charles Finch, the development of several supporting characters is what makes this particular installment in the series stand out for me. In fact, it may be my favorite in the series thus far, though it may be more accurate to say it ties with A Burial at Sea.

The main mystery is compelling. It begins when Charles meets -- or rather, fails to meet -- an anonymous client of his protege Jonathan Dallington, who is ill and can not meet the client himself. It turns out the client has a rather important job in Buckingham Palace and has become an extortion victim. The reason for that extortion, however, that is the crux of the matter and leads to a wonderfully suspenseful ending. Unfortunately, I can't say anything more without breaking my personal cardinal rule of reviews of not re-writing the plot or giving any spoilers.

Additionally, the book has several delicious sub-mysteries as well, all involving people in Charles' life. Finch's skill as a writer quietly shines here -- none of the subplots feel forced or shoehorned in, and one never gets the sense that characters appear simply because they are "fan favorites", which can sometimes happen when a series becomes more popular. The most interesting of these is a mystery of sorts that threatens Charles' career in Parliament.

All the wonderful hallmarks of the series are present in this installment, especially the elegant juxtaposition of the genteel world of Victorian London's upper classes with the feral brutality of desperate criminals. Although Charles doesn't venture into any slums in this installment, the plight of the poor is still present in the background of the book, such as when Charles spends part of the book fighting for better housing for the poor in Parliament. The narrative sparkles with gems of historical research; my favorite was the explanation of how the word "hogwash" originated. And throughout it all are Finch's gentle humor and razor-sharp insight into human nature at both its best and worst.

I have always believed the characters are the heart and soul of a good story. A story with a meticulous and clever plot and perhaps even a decently crafted setting, but characters without distinct personalities, is like a perfect cake in which one forgets the baking soda; it inevitably falls flat. This installment fleshes out Toto and McConnel, introduces some very refreshing and new characters (spinoff series? dare I hope?) and allows all of the established characters to grow.

A successful series installment makes the reader eager to read the next installment. When it comes to mystery series, for me, it also makes the characters seem like old friends you visit periodically. By that measure, this series is a resounding success.

Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas by Stephanie Barron (Being a Jane Austen Mystery)

2018-01-07T20:07:00.000-07:00

It may have been simply the timing – there couldn’t be a better set up for a mystery lover at Christmastime – but Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas brought Stephanie Barron’s “Being a Jane Austen Mystery” series back into my rotation after a fairly lengthy hiatus.

After two slightly disappointing previous installments, I found myself thoroughly engrossed in a mystery that had all the classic elements of a good mystery: Jane and her family trapped in a snowbound country estate, a nefarious murder that leaves a household full of suspects, geopolitical intrigue, a pleasant subplot of a hand-made doll’s wardrobe and an as-ever observant but slightly more snarky (and hilarious) Jane Austen.

So again, it may have been the timing. It was Christmas, I was determined to get into the Christmas spirit and it was bitterly cold in both Phoenix and Las Vegas (by Phoenix and Las Vegas standards, mind you) where I started and finished the book. I’m a great believer in literary ambiance and if there were ever a book written to be enjoyed while drinking spendy tea and wearing Christmas fuzzy socks this is it.

Yet perhaps this particular installment achieves its aim so well because Barron fleshes out Austen and her family in a way I don’t think she ever has before.

In this book we glimpse Austen’s deep yearning for her deceased father. The complexities of her relationship with her sister Cassandra elevate “Cass” from a background character to a much more appealing player. Likewise, even Austen’s brother Henry and his wife, Mary, unlikeable though they may be, feel like those family members we all have in one iteration or another. That's not to say there's an excessive amount of naval gazing, mind you. But Jane felt more like a woman and less like just a detective-cum-authoress than ever before.

It’s clear Barron conducts an extraordinary amount of research into every book and is meticulous about incorporating actual facts from Austen’s life into the mystery. Or rather, she takes Austen's life and puts a mystery into that time period. If Austen was in Bath in December of 18__, that’s where that mystery will take place. If her brothers were deployed during the first Napoleonic war, then Barron will be certain to work in Jane’s justifiable fretting about them. The books are set up as journal entries for chapters, but the dates are not made up in the slightest. In terms of sheer chronological detail, this series may be as close to nonfiction as a pastiche can ever hope to get.

And maybe that’s why Barron always seemed a bit reticent to develop her Jane Austen’s character. In the other books, I always felt like Austen was almost too objective, her astuteness the product of an impartiality that made her a touch less, well, human.

Not so in Twelve Days, however. It feels as though Barron has made whatever peace she needed to in order to allow this iteration of Austen blossom into a full-fledged heroine, complete with an internal life that goes beyond eagle-eyed observation of others and an intellect softened by wit.

There’s even the slightest whiff of romance, which I for one was happy to see, but in true Austen style this in no way interferes with or subtracts from the very serious business of murder, family secrets and – huzzah! – plausible secret passages.

In addition to a wonderful atmosphere and well-developed characters (there are quite a few, actually), this particular Jane Austen mystery sheds light on Edwardian Christmas celebrations and traditions, which nerds like me always enjoy. From the actual boughs of holly decorating the table to the literal Yule log burning in the hall, I learned quite a bit in the best way possible, by being told a story. Not being religious, I found the days honoring various saints was especially fascinating.

Finally, as a political junkie, the addition of a crucial geopolitical facet to the mystery left me falling asleep only because I couldn’t keep my eyes open and waking up eager to get to reading again. I wish that had been developed a bit more, but respect that it really couldn’t be without stretching the boundary of plausibility too far.

The Dead Hour by Denise Mina (A Paddy Meehan mystery)

2017-08-16T13:18:00.000-07:00

During one scene in Denise Mina’s The Dead Hour, the series protagonist Paddy Meehan struggles to climb a tall gate in order to inspect a property possibly involved in a murder. Paddy, an overweight, insecure but determined Scottish Daily News crime reporter, eventually scales the door, but not before gracelessly falling into the mud and tearing her stockings.

The stockings are more than just an aesthetic inconvenience; Paddy supports her parents and one sister on her meager reporter’s salary and every penny counts, so it's not simply a matter of buying a new pair. Not to mention that it’s terribly cold in Scotland and wool stockings help. Still, frustrated but undaunted, Paddy nevertheless makes her way to the house to snoop around.

It’s the kind of scene Denise Mina handles exceptionally well. Her deft touch allows the protagonist to be brave without being invulnerable, intelligent but still prone to making utterly human poor decisions, and to remain themselves even while trudging through days punctuated by the small indignities that accompany being broke and on a lower social tier.

I’ve whined before about heroines who come dangerously close to becoming bland, boring Mary Sues. Of course this woman detective has studied that obscure dialect of a lesser-known language, and of course they have impeccable fashion sense and yes, they’re good at Math and have a perfect sense of direction and handle all social morasses with diplomacy and aplomb. Yawn (and eye roll if they're pretty, too). Happily, Paddy Meehan will never run the risk of being that boring.

Thus this third installment of the Paddy Meehan series which begins, appropriately enough, when Paddy inadvertently accepts a bribe at the scene of a domestic violence incident that becomes a brutal murder. In all fairness, the much-needed, blood-stained money is thrust into Paddy’s hands by the man who answers the door and before she can react the door is slammed in her face.

Paddy’s internal vacillations about whether to keep the money or turn it in to the police as evidence, and the consequences of that decision for her both personally and professionally, turn a compelling thriller and mystery into something more literary and rich.

A counternarrative of an addict, from a completely different point of view, adds an undercurrent of suspense that keeps the reader turning pages. Mina’s ability to completely change narrative voice, syntax, perspective and style are comparable to Tana French.

Although I’m not overly familiar with Scotland’s recession during the 1980s, the dreary ghosts of empty factories and the lingering wounds suffered by the workers' families are an ever-present, sinister whisper throughout the story. Yet the reader is never bludgeoned over the head with it, either.

But all that is signature Mina, of course. One is forced to confront the totally unvarnished and only loosely fictionalized realities of poverty, sex trafficking, mental health care, (or the lack thereof) and much more in all of Mina’s novels. (Brace yourself when reading her phenomenal and gripping Garnett Hill trilogy.) But the reader is never being proselytized, either. Reality simply is what it is, and there’s little use complaining about it.

Don't let that deter you from giving Mina a shot, however, even if that sounds a bit dark. Her books have intelligent, complex characters and her heroines all have a wicked, laugh-out-loud sense of humor that helps lighten the shadows of the brutal, objective truths.

In short, The Dead Hour is a pretty enjoyable installment in the series, although I concede a character development cliff hanger at the end left me frustrated and annoyed. In keeping with my cardinal rule for this blog, I won’t give spoilers, but suffice it so say I was left thinking, “Oh great, not another one!”

As a final note, allow me to indulge in a personal aside. There is a line in this book in which a new editor from London replaces the bedraggled, grizzled old-school editor. That dismissal is soon followed by the exit of several of the other reporters of a very old generation from a time during which writing a story from a bar nearby while drinking was not only the norm but damn near expected.

The presses leave the building. The sales staff and editors all move into cubicles on the floor beneath, exiled from the comfortably broken-in newsroom with its scarred tables, clanging typewriters and assorted detritus.

The line observes that now the newspaper could just as well be selling insurance, and no one would be able to tell the difference.

It reminded me, sharply, of when the small press that was housed adjacent to my first paper, The Pahrump Valley Times, was shut down so the paper could be printed in Las Vegas, about 45 minutes away.

Before then, I would sometimes go into the press building and chat with the press guys or just watch the presses whir. More than anything I loved to breathe in the sharp, slightly acidic smell of ink and be wrapped in the thudding rumble of events being churned onto giant rolls of paper. It felt like being right inside the world’s heartbeat.

I often lingered in the press room of my last paper, The Casa Grande Dispatch, too, for the basically the same reason. Both papers had wonderfully broken-in newsroom where reporters filed stories alongside wavering stacks of the newspapers next to their desks and the editor (or in the Dispatch’s case, the publisher) had the only real office. I suppose, in a way, they were the transition between Paddy’s old-school newsroom and today’s slick, cubicle-mazed offices.

At any rate, though I don’t think I’d want a return to the boorish, chauvinist, functioning-alcoholic newsrooms of the past (we had them here in America, too), I deeply appreciated Mina’s nod to the death of a certain era.

Leaving Everthing Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear (A Maisie Dobbs mystery)

2017-04-02T12:55:00.003-07:00

Jacqueline Winspear describes murder victims so well through other characters you half-wish they hadn't been killed so you can "meet" the character. But then there wouldn't be a murder to solve so, in the end, this literary taunting is forgivable.

In Leaving Everything Most Loved, the tenth book in the acclaimed Maisie Dobbs series, Winspear has outdone herself in this regard.

Leaving Everything Most Loved, like all compelling historical fiction, allows the reader to glimpse a small snippet of history that is often overlooked when major events and social shifts are viewed from across an expanse of decades.

In this case, Winspear focuses on the experiences of Indian maids and nannies brought to England by British families returning from stints in the British Raj. It wasn't uncommon for the Indian help to be summarily dismissed when children went to boarding school or they were simply deemed unnecessary. Consequently, many young, single Indian women were left to fend for themselves in a foreign city without so much as reference or severance pay.

Churches and charity groups set up boarding homes for these women, often demanding conversion to Christianity in exchange. Some homes would find the women work so the women could eventually earn enough for passage back to India. But every so often a woman might marry an Englishman or choose to stay in London, which contributed to a growing Indian community.

Maisie is asked to consult with Scottland Yard when a particularly striking Indian woman is shot directly between the eyes. Her body is discovered days later by a group of young boys playing near the canal. The victim's brother, who fought for Britain in World War I, correctly assumes the simmering bigotry of London's middle class towards the city's burgeoning Indian community prevented Yard investigators from being as thorough as they might have been. When the brother comes to London and appears at Scottland Yard in his British army uniform, the Yard takes him, and the case, to Maisie's door.

Winspear's ability to illustrate the social tension between the Indian women like the victim and London's middle-class through the words and actions of auxiliary characters is "hidden" research at its best. Conversations and offhand comments feel authentic to the period and no statistics or facts are laboriously inserted into the narrative to make any points. Still, one gets a very clear sense of the social mores of mid- to late-1930s London.

There are far too few glimpses into the riches of Indian culture, but enough of them to bring to mind the way Indian spices wrap around one like a warm, heavy blanket when Indian cuisine is cooked, or to think back on the beautiful, brightly-colored silks from which saris are made.

The mystery of who shot the victim is certainly central to the novel, but once again I found myself thinking Winspear has outgrown the "mystery" genre. Would I read a Maisie Dobbs installment if it wasn't a mystery? Absolutely, though unlike the past two books the mystery itself felt less shoehorned into genre conventions.

Another of Winspear's strengths as a writer lies in her ability to create convincing inner narratives and motivations for her characters, even if the characters themselves lack any gritty flaws that would make them as human as, say, a Denise Mina character. This story seemed particularly well-suited to exploring character motivation and made for enjoyable reading.

As always, Winspear's landscapes are convincing if a bit airbrushed, and although plenty of readers quickly tire of Maisie's "naval gazing," I personally enjoy her introspection. For me, Maisie's indecisiveness is a saving grace; without it, she is far too much of a Mary Sue to be interesting.

Finally, for those who read series because they adore the way characters in book series become like friends (and I certainly fall into this camp), this will be a rich and satisfying read indeed. Characters move on in a variety of ways and Maisie learns a bit more about controlling others and butting in. She also finds herself at a crossroads, or rather hesitant to move on to the path she has really already chosen.

I wouldn't recommend this as an introduction to the series, however. Winspear does what back explaining is necessary, but wisely keeps the rehashing short. If you're an established fan of this series, however, enjoy -- you're in for a treat.

Death Comes to Pemberly by P.D. James

2017-01-18T23:57:00.004-07:00

Death Comes to Pemberley was my introduction to the world-renown Baroness of Holland Park P.D. James, and so I am crushed to report I did not enjoy this book at all.

I was so excited to read it, too.

First, I would finally be introduced to P.D. James and, given the subject of this blog, I'm well aware of how ridiculous it is I haven't read anything else by her.

Secondly, although not a cosplaying, fanfiction-writing, convention-attending fangirl, I do so love Jane Austen. Aside from the Sherlock Holmes canon, which I re-read when I was younger every November for about six years straight, I am not, as a general rule, one for re-reading books. But I have read Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility twice each, and suspect at some point down the road I will certainly revisit Emma.

The premise of the mystery is a wonderful one, too. A dark and stormy night, a carriage carrying Elizabeth's infamous sister Lydia (yes, that Lydia, now Mrs. Wickham) to the Darcys' door, a brutally murdered body found in a moonlit field -- the perfect recipe to stay up cataclysmically late reading. In fact, the book jacket's synopsis made save this book for a weekend because I was certain I'd lose track of time and look up from it to see silver clouds and the sun flirting with the skyline.

Which makes this review all the more difficult to write. So I will start on a positive note, and work my way through from there.

The book does succeed in a few notable ways well worth mentioning.

Undeniably, P.D. James captured the tone, syntax and rhythm of Austen's narrative style masterfully. It is obvious James loved Austen and James certainly treated Austen's sparse but piercing writing style with respect, if not reverence. Achieving that level of authenticity is not easily done and James deserves high praise for it.

There was quite a bit of detail on the British legal system, which was at the advent of some pretty exciting and revolutionary changes at the time, and James does a nice job incorporating these. As a former law student and just a nerd in general, I thought these were some of the most interesting parts of the book, but I wouldn't be shocked if others found it to be a bit too much.

There was, of course, some rehashing of Pride of Prejudice, and even though at times I thought it tedious I can forgive it -- not everyone who picks up this book with be familiar with its basis and they deserve a full story arc, too. So for me, that wasn't the issue.

The problem was the book never seemed to really to gain momentum of any kind until the very end and, even then, one subplot was tied up in a way that I can only describe as deus ex machina at best and lazy at worst.

The dialogue felt forced and wooden, turning all of the characters into beige, blurry splotches of their beloved roots, at times nearly interchangeable.

Now, I understand that this is, after all, a pastiche; I think it's unreasonable to expect the characters in any pastiche to be exactly the same as the ones in an original work. And, given that this story takes place a good length of time after Pride and Prejudice, it can be easily argued that the characters, like real people, will have grown and changed from their experiences.

Yet all of the characters sounded like the same person was speaking, particularly the men.

Granted, there was a tone and style to speech in Regency England that reflected one's class and upbringing, and any writing tackling Austen has to be aware of this because Austen herself used that as a narrative tool so well.

So Wickham would have the same speech pattern as Darcy because it would underscore their common upbringing, and serve as a subtle way to remind the reader that despite speaking the same as Darcy they are not, and never were or will be, in the same class caste.

However, that does not mean characters would give up any and all sense of personality. The fact that Austen's characters are still beloved today proves this. But unfortunately, that is exactly what happens in Death Comes to Pemberley.

If Lydia was being melodramatic, or Darcy frustrated, or Wickham cagey, the reader never knows this by how they act or what they say but because they are told that is the case. This may come down to personal preference but that level of expository writing in fiction simply bores me to tears.

This made a pretty decent twist ending (those who read mysteries frequently will likely figure it out pretty early on) fall flat.

Even the settings have the two-dimensional feel of a cutout for a stage play, like something James had to get through before she could go back to explaining things. The characters didn't so much interact with the places they are in so much as get put there.

Which I suppose, for me, is the best way to sum up why I couldn't get lost in this story. It felt rushed and mechanical, the fiction equivalent of reading a grocery list.

Of course, every well-plotted story has an attendant checklist -- introduce characters, give full context, describe/incorporate settings, etc. etc., and what is a plot if not map? But the reader should never see that process or even know it is happening.

Whereas while slogging my way through this book I couldn't shake the feeling I was reading a detailed basic outline of a proposed story. Had James taken the time to flesh it out a bit more, this could have been a really great pastiche.

The Devil's Workshop by Alex Grecian (A Scotland Yard Murder Squad mystery)

2017-01-08T17:49:00.001-07:00

Every so often, an installment in an ongoing series will engross me so thoroughly it is all I can do not to stand up after closing the back cover and give the author a standing ovation.

The Devil's Workshop, the third installment of Alex Grecian's Socttland Yard's Murder Squad series, is one of those books.

Grecian succeeds on a dazzling array of levels in this installment: dialogue, setting, plot, pacing; basically, writing.

He flicks between multiple points of view and settings, changing the narrative voice accordingly, without ever allowing the page-turning, suspense-filled plot to flag. All of the events in the book, remarkably, basically take place over the course of a little over a day.

So the plot and pacing are as good a place to being as any in describing what made this such a wonderful read.

Briefly, this installment finds Detective Walter Day and his loyal partner Nevil Hammersmith being woken in the wee small hours of the morning to find several murderers who have been broken out of a prison. (The prison break itself, by the way, is worth the cost of the admission.)

One of the escaped prisoners is the same serial killer from the first novel in the series, one of Grecian's most skin-crawling villains. The other is The Harvest Man, who is just as chills-inducing and disquieting, the kind of character that whispers in your mind long after you've stopped reading for the night.

Normally, I roll my eyes when authors bring back old antagonists, but in this case Grecian has plausibly, and engrossingly, brought back both. It makes sense both in terms of this particular installment in the series and in terms of the larger, overall series plot arc.

Adding to the plot is the existence of a shadow society that kidnaps and tortures men who they believe have gotten away with murder. One of their victims is Saucy Jack himself, which is why, of course, he seems to have inexplicably disappeared.

On the character development side, Day is nervous about an upcoming major life event and his old mentor returns to help hunt down prisoners.

That's a lot of plot, characters and settings (more on the settings in a bit). Yet Grecian writes so efficiently that the story does not become cluttered with characters and side plots.
No dialogue is wasted; it all furthers the plot or sheds insight into a character. Descriptions are just enough to allow the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks, but are deep enough to get the reader started.

The settings are also rich and varied. They include a tiny street tea vendor's stand, a cozy family home, a desolate prison on the outskirts of London and finally the fiendish twists and turns of underground London, with its rivers, catacombs and abandoned, ancient cellars and all.

Finally, once again I am pleasantly surprised by Grecian's Jack the Ripper. So much has been written about Jack the Ripper, both in nonfiction and fiction, I can't help but approach most series centering around Saucy Jack with a bit of trepidation. As a true crime fan, I've read enough about him to spoil most Ripper pastiches, though I don't ever blame a writer for mining such a rich patch of criminal history.

Grecian's Ripper succeeds because first, it evident that Grecian has done his homework, researching both the Ripper and what his mental illness may have been. So although there is, of course, gory violence that gives one goose bumps and, perhaps, a bit of nausea, it is never gratuitous. It is the logical action based on Jack's own twisted internal logic, and that lends it credibility.

Horror is not a genre I generally read, but every time I read a Scottland Yard's Murder Squad installment I am grateful for Grecian's background in that genre. I read this around Halloween for my scary book and was not disappointed in the least.

The Collaborator of Bethlehem by Matt Rees (The Palestinian Quartet)

2016-10-16T18:47:00.000-07:00

[Warning: The introduction to the review of the book is rather long; I apologize for that but felt it necessary to ensure readers have the complete context from which I base this review. In an era of soundbites, pull quotes, memes and GIFs, I shall plant my lonely flag of exposition. It’s a luxury afforded to those of us who have maybe two people who read our blog.]

It's easy in today’s information-saturated age to believe one understands a place and its people, even never having been there (or spoken to anyone who has). It is so effortless, after all, to binge watch YouTube lectures and read an assortment of blogs, articles and – for the true cyber-anthropologists – all the comments below said videos or articles.

That said, it is equally easy to become so inundated with information, from so many conflicting sources, that one loses all hope of ever understanding other places, cultures and people.

Finally, there are those who moor against the unceasing tidal waves of information by sheltering within unshakable conviction.

Thankfully, fiction allows an alternate avenue to information about cultures, places, nations and, naturally, conflict. If a work a good – and I don’t mean just entertaining, I mean a piece that truly masters a genre – then intertwined with dialogue and people spun from thin air are real, honest facts and truths about the character’s setting, societal norms and culture.[1]

Fiction allows us to learn and absorb information in a way that somewhat cushions against the modern instinct -- not misplaced -- to analyze the source and its motives. We already know that story is the motive and we trust the writer has done the due diligence to make it a story worth being told.

Perhaps that’s why I have found some of the best insights into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in works of fiction such as Joe Sacco’s startling, disorienting and wonderful graphic novel Palestine.

To be sure, I’ve read plenty of nonfiction as well, from Jimmy Carter’s Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid and Sandy Tolan’s The Lemon Tree, but often it was only when I read works of fiction, such as Almost Dead by Assaf Gavron, that any the information I received from nonfiction works metamorphosed into knowledge, or at least the closest thing I can claim to have of knowledge, given that I’ve never set foot anywhere in Israel.

I’m not going to share my opinions on that conflict; this isn’t a political blog and, in any case, in my view any review that allows political bias to influence an assessment of a work of fiction is not to be trusted.

I will, however, disclose that I have had a fascination and admiration for Middle Eastern culture since I was little girl, long before it became distilled down to media buzzwords and conflated with the Muslim religion.

Which is why I saved this book from a friend’s culling pile.

I forgot about it for years until, looking for a quick read prior to my first travel vacation in five years, I found it again on the wrong bookshelf, the one I reserve for “stand alone” mysteries. And I am so glad I did.

First, a reader should understand that the protagonist, Omar Yussef, is a Christian in modern-ish Bethleham (presumably, this around the mid-to-late 1990s), which has become increasingly hostile to Christians.

Yussef is old enough to recall his father’s friendships with Muslims and Jews, and even to have a few Muslim friends of his own, but cynical enough to recognize the Martyrs Brigade for the strong-arm gang of thugs it is, even as it shrouds itself in the Palestinian flag and resistance movement.

His faith is not the only thing that sets Omar Yussef apart, however. Also compelling is the way he internalized what his father told him when the family was forced from their home by Israeli soldiers. Unlike the other refugees, Omar’s father didn’t expect to return. Which isn’t to say the eviction didn’t touch the Yussef family; his mother was so spiritually traumatized and chronically homesick she never settles into Bethlehem and struggled with severe depression for the rest of her life.

But Omar is no martyr to be pitied; indeed he is human to a degree that one rarely finds in fiction protagonists. A recovering alcoholic who squandered much of his youth in the bottle, Omar Yussef has been essentially demoted from teaching history at a respectable school to United Nations Palestinian refugee camp girls’ school. Still, he retains a dignity and honesty in his teaching and takes true pride in helping to form students' minds.

Omar’s thoughtful, if politically tone-deaf, refusal to allow his students to give into blind hatred and propaganda make him unsurprisingly unpopular with many of his students’ parents and his American boss. The mischievous sense of humor with which he handles this situation is one of several unexpected delights within the book.

Omar’s drinking has taken a toll on his body, which is aging prematurely, a rather nice change from the typically vigorous, indestructible protagonists so many mystery novels have.

In addition to a complex, rather unlikely hero, Matt Rees also humanizes the ambivalence, weariness, frustration and even hope of everyday people attempting to live ordinary, everyday lives in the midst of a conflict with global repercussions.

Rees shows us families cowering from Israeli tracers and bulldozers that destroy roads in the middle of the night but he also shows, rather mercilessly, the degree to which even Palestinians are not united amongst themselves and their own culpability in perpetuating half of the endless cycle of hate.

The mystery at the heart of this novel, with its mix of foregone conclusions, hope, cynicism and the never ending capacity of our fellow humans to surprise and disappoint us, lives up to complex and absorbing backdrop.

Omar’s motives are messy and a bit selfish – one of his brightest former students has been falsely accused of being an Israeli collaborator and helping Shin Bet to assassinate a resistance leader (or terrorist, depending on your perspective) and Reese pulls no punches in its inevitably bloody conclusion – of the many things this novel is, wish fulfillment it is not. Omar sincerely wants justice but in his core is desperate that one of the best examples of his legacy is not senselessly wrongfully destroyed.

It all makes for surprisingly quick and thought-provoking reading. It is easy to see why Rees was an award-winning foreign correspondent for The Scotsman and Newsweek.

As readers, we can be thankful for that. As people who hope for peace, we can only sigh and accept the truth as it stands.

[1] In no way am I suggesting that reading fiction is an adequate substitution for educating oneself. That is an entirely different process and, by definition, would include credible sources such as newspapers of record, original source notes and transcripts, peer-reviewed academic journal articles and the like at the very least.

Justice Hall by Laurie R. King (A Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell mystery)

2016-10-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

As much as possible, I try to offer fairly objective reviews for this blog.

True, a review is by definition subjective, but what I mean is that I make a conscious effort to focus on a book's writing and narrative style, how well the author folds research into the story (or how well-researched a novel is), setting, the development of characters over time, etc. The more “technical” aspects, I suppose.

It also means I try to keep knee-jerk opinions to a minimum and examine why I like or dislike something. I’m well aware that (especially when it comes to Doyle's Sherlock Holmes or Robert Louis Stevenson or a few other of my sacred cow authors) I can be a harsh, unforgiving, nitpicky, stick-in-the-mud puritanical pedant.

Hard to believe, I know, but I do in fact try to reign that in.

That said, sometimes I’m just going to enjoy a book precisely because of certain settings, plot elements, time periods or other literary elements. Much to my surprise, Justice Hall is one of those of books.

As I’ve explained in another post, The Moor nearly made me give up this series altogether. O Jerusalem, however, played right into my lifelong love of MiddleEastern culture. [1] So to say King is becoming a bit of a hit-or-miss author for me is an understatement.

Enter Justice Hall, a book that combines two of my favorite Middle Eastern characters from the series with my all-time favorite mystery setting, a grand English manor. Upon first glance, it's not exactly a setting portmanteau I'd think would work, but King manages to make the two diametrically opposed worlds and the tension between them play together wonderfully. It’s a neat trick, and I can’t help but mentally tip my hat to author Laurie R. King for pulling it off.

The plot has all the elements needed to make it a fun, albeit a tad predictable, read for the mystery lover. Secret passages, a traditional English hunt, a huge, grand gala, a war-torn love story, family secrets. Like a traditional dish of comfort food untouched by the gluten free movement that uses real butter, King has crafted a shamelessly indulgent (and satisfying) piece of genre fiction.

There is a panoply of interesting, diverse characters, a well-plotted, complex mystery and several other artfully constructed settings besides Justice Hall as well. I found some of family genealogy aspects yawn-inducing but I know plenty of people simply love that kind of thing. And, in all fairness, it is the focal point upon which the plot turns.

Another compelling element of this installment is how King handles the time period. The struggle of an upper-class society attempting to find its footing in the turbulent wake of social changes brought by World War I is not a focal point of the book but is adequately explored through telling details such as the preparations for a huge party and the more casual dress and demeanor of houseguests. (I tried not to think this installment was not a mercenary attempt by King to capitalize on the Downton Abbey craze).

One aspect of this installment, one that I can’t help but wonder if it contributed to my deep enjoyment of this book, is that Sherlock himself is largely absent for a large part of it.

I have commented before on how unnecessary and pointless I find Mary and Sherlock’s marriage to be. In addition to being fairly far-fetched (and I say this as a woman whose husband is 10 years older than her), it is poorly handled and simply doesn’t do anything to further any of the stories or the characters.

Improbably in this installment, for example, Mary has to be reminded at one point that Sherlock, not being as young as he used to be, may take longer to recover from injuries. Again, as woman with an older husband (I am 34, my husband is 45), believe me – you can’t be in an intimate marital relationship and not pick up on something like that, let alone forget it. I don’t care how fit or healthy Sherlock is; a 20-year-old young man is simply not that easily confused with a man in his forties.

In addition, the relationship is extraordinarily cold and passionless anyway, which means when it does come up it gets in the way.

Russell and Holmes’ relationship feels like an intimate friendship between a girl and a mentor; why not just let it be that? I’m not looking for a romance novel and don’t need any bodice ripping, but for a young woman who is so willing to dive into life-threatening adventures the notion that she is essentially asexual is discordant.

We expect that from Holmes, of course, but for me Mary’s haughty, cold-fish nature only exacerbates the grating Mary Sue aspect of her character (speaking of the Mary Sue tendency, she has an absolutely eye-roll inducing part to play in an otherwise excellently done traditional English hunt).

At this point, I wish Mary would discover she’s a lesbian and fall passionately in love with a woman, or even another, younger man, or at least admit her marriage with Holmes is merely one of convenience so they can stay in the same hotel room or whatever when need be. It is the only thing that demotes these books from a fairly well-done pastiche to borderline adolescent wish fulfillment fan fiction.

[1] My obsession and love of the Middle East began after reading a special edition of National Geographic from my grandfather. (Oh how I loved his bi-yearly deliveries of that heavy stack of glossy, wonder-filled pages!)

Specifically, a special edition on the disappearing traditions of the Middle East. I think I was in third or fourth grade, possibly younger. There was one particular photo of a lone, robed Pashtun chief, robes billowing, walking away from the camera amidst gaping-mouthed modern tourists on a paved road that I will never forget. But it was the sidebars that got me – the folklore, the beautiful script I couldn’t read, the explosive colored mountains of spices, intriguing stories of women with "faces like the moon" and treasure that was likely to be coffee or spices as jewels...I was determined to travel the Middle East as a nomadic adventurer when I grew up.

Obviously, that is a dream deferred for a litany of reasons, but with every report of ISIS destroying Syrian artifacts or other Middle Eastern treasures, my heart simply breaks.

The Right Attitude to Rain (An Isabel Dalhousie mystery)

2016-06-20T01:35:00.002-07:00

This installment breaks my cardinal rule of no spoilers. It is the first, and hopefully the last, time I will ever have to do that in order to adequately explain part of the reasoning behind my review. I have warned when the spoiler is coming and made the text of it white in an attempt to not ruin the book for a cursory reader.

The Isabel Dalhousie books by Alexander McCall Smith, are my go-to when I need a proper cozy. The serene life of an independently wealthy, cultured Scottish philosopher and her internal musings as she attempts to lead a philosophically moral life (or justify her nosiness) is perfect for when the world seems just a bit too cruel, unforgiving, hostile, garish and uncivilized, as it certainly did last week.

Given that, and the fact that this particular installment resolves a fairly major character plot arc in the way I was hoping, this should've been one of my favorite installments.

And yet, it was my least favorite and left me feeling vaguely frustrated and unsatisfied.

Part of the reason, I suppose, is that Alexander McCall Smith was still trying to cram a mystery into a world in which the characters' lives have simply transcended that genre (as has also happened, for example, with Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series). I don't mind reading future installments as novels, but the purported mystery not only wasn't but didn't make any real type of appearance until the last third of the book! Something about that just feels lazy to me.

Secondly, a subplot that was introduced as a rather major story arc was abandoned entirely and then wrapped up abruptly in a rather unlikely way towards the end of book in a rather shabby way.

Finally,the big twist ending surprise was such a predictable letdown.

[SPOILER FOLLOWS -- Out of sheer necessity, I assure you. I hate reveiws that give spoilers and as a general rule never do, but there is no other way to further explain my feelings about this book.]

<spoiler> Here you have Isabel Dalhousie, an independent, intelligent 42-year-old woman with a 24-year-old, handsome, "gentle" man who is in love with her. She finds the strength and courage to pursue him and get her man, finding love again. Fantastic! How empowering and refreshing to see a character that isn't sexually dead after thirty!

And what does McCall Smith do? He impregnates her. Because of course the only thing "missing" from her life has to be a baby, right? Some of my bitterness here is personal, I freely admit that. I'm happily childfree at 35 and one of the reasons I loved Isabel was that it was awesome to have a heroine whose life didn't revolve around a husband and children and the pursuit thereof.

I'm sure being older and having a child before Cat, her younger niece, will present complications. And a baby is not going to fit well into Isabel's well-ordered, quiet and serene life, surely. But quite frankly, my real life is already surrounded by and inundated with mothers, so it's with no little disappointment I find Isabel is now going to be All About Being A Mom All The Time. </spoiler>

So, I suppose I'm being a curmudgeon about a character's evolution. But it honestly didn't feel natural for either character and feels a bit like a calculated demographics grab, quite frankly. I'll read the next installment to see where it goes, but I have to be honest: I won't be surprised if it's time for Isabel and I to, unfortunately, part ways.

Jane and Cantebury Tale by Stephanie Barron (A Jane Austen mystery)

2016-05-29T20:00:00.002-07:00

I have to be careful when reviewing installments in this series. The truth is ever since a major development involving a certain major character occurred, the books simply haven’t been the same.

Don’t get me wrong – Stephanie Barron’s command of Austen’s syntax and narrative style, not to mention her ability to plausibly tie every mystery into where Austen actually was at the time in real life, continues to be nothing short of incredible.

That said, this installment was oddly easy to figure out. Admittedly, this could be because I primarily read historical fiction mysteries (hence this blog), particularly character series. But I’ve always counted on Barron for her ability to genuinely stump and surprise.

Barron’s plots, like Austen’s, are generally subtle without being opaque. The puzzle in Jane Austen mysteries is usually pieced together through the quiet but crucial tells of the different characters. A stutter here, an unexplained absence there, strange behavior or a tiny inconsistency in aspect or dress.

To be sure, there is some of that in this book. But one of the main events – the delivery of a sachet of seeds to a bride on the eve of her second wedding – fizzles out a bit and was rather disappointing. I suppose it could have been a peacock feather meant to distract, but all the same, that tantalizing plot point was still something of a letdown.

Likewise, one of the characters, a sketchy, world-traveled sailor, is marvelously compelling. Austen and her brother’s visit to that character in gaol is Barron at her best. But here, too, the final reveal was not very surprising and rather anticlimactic.

Again, I have to be careful here. I may simply be getting over the series; I wasn’t a huge fan of the last installment, either. I’ll admit that for about six months now my tastes have leaned towards more contemporary mystery series.

Still, normally I when I read a Jane Austen mystery it is an elegant experience during which the reader is given plenty of time and room to savor character development. Though the events are rarely hurried, the undercurrent thread of suspense is always taut. This installment, though not unenjoyable, simply didn’t seem as good as the others.

A Death in the Small Hours by Charles Finch (A Charles Lenox mystery)

2016-05-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

Though some might say the book should end once the mystery is solved, I for one was happily relieved to witness several key events that serve as subplots in A Death in the Small Hours, Charles Finch’s sixth installment of his wonderful Charles Lenox mysteries.

The deft and artful way in which Finch drops the reader into a pleasant or interesting situation makes one feel a bit like they are strolling in an impressionist painting. The setting is slightly idealized (though still well-researched), with an emphasis on beauty and mood. He writes with a painter’s sense of hue, including just enough to detail to throw the entire image into sharp relief. (I suspect this is especially true for readers such as myself who have not had the fortune to actually travel to England, despite spending thousands of literary hours there, both in the past and present.)

For example, much of this book takes place at Everley, where Lenox’s uncle (technically cousin, but that’s not really the relationship the two have) tends beautiful surrounding gardens and sits as magistrate and de facto squire to the village of Plumbley. As the Lenox family rides up to the estate, a place of many happy memories for Charles, we are told that Everley is “had none of the grandeur of a palace, or of the great medieval castles—it was only two stories—yet it had a beauty all its own” (p. 35, 2012 Minotaur Books U.S. paperback).

The subsequent description has just enough detail to make it a firm setting in the reader’s mind– we are told of an old wing built in 1220 and a “more recent” Queen Anne-period hall, of a pond and “small gardens with gravel paths, not grand but perfect in their beauty” (Ibid.).

Yet the description simultaneously lacks just enough detail to allow Everley to become a place of the reader’s imagination – in my opinion, best balance a writer can strike.

But that is nothing new from Finch. He has remained remarkable in his ability to create atmosphere and strike a consistent tone without getting stagnant. Indeed, this book installment contains quite a few plot twists, one of which was totally unexpected. And, for those who enjoy just a bit more action and derring-do, you’ll find this installment has plenty of both.

Still, it is still almost what I would call a cozy, though there is some physical action and, of course, a tragic and senseless murder. The murder comes on the heels of vandalism that has recently been occurring in Pemberley. At first, Lenox believes them to be the antics of restless schoolboys but the cryptic, sinister messages that accompany the destruction preclude school boy antics. Naturally, the murder draws both Lenox and the reader into the main plot, even though poor Lenox initially goes to the country to complete a career-making Parliamentary task.

If there can be said to be a major flaw with this installment, it is that perhaps Finch is too enamored with his own characters. But, who can blame him? They’re wonderful. But then again, that’s a bit of the rub, too. One wants to gets to know them more but Finch, and by extension Lenox, who are nothing if not gentlemen, retain a respectful distance that keeps some of the more minor characters at bit at arm’s length. But perhaps I’m just a pushy, nosy American.

All in all, while I wouldn’t call this the best installment of the series, I would say it’s a solid entry into what continues to be a great series. This is a relief given certain major character developments that had me worried the series would inevitably devolve into something else. But existing fans will enjoy it, I’m sure, and those who are new to the series will find it a perfectly good introduction to most of the main characters.

Broken Harbor by Tana French (A Dublin Murder Squad mystery)

2016-03-20T23:47:00.002-07:00

Having already rhapsodized about Tana French's incredible ability to narrate in distinct voices and the literary quality of her novels, one wouldn't think there would be much left to say in terms of the fourth installment in the Dublin Murder Squad series.

And yet.

This installment continues French's leitmotif of forcing the detective, in this case Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy, to solve a brutal murder in a locale that is also the setting for a dark period of their past. And, once again, she pulls this off well, creating a totally plausible past and present for both the setting and the protagonist.

Kennedy, the unapologetic straight arrow that most people on the squad dislike for being that guy, the one who won't even bend the rules a little, is called to solve the deaths of a father and his two kids. The mother and her husband were brutally stabbed while their kids upstairs were suffocated in their bed. The mother survives, just barely.

The entire home, a shoddily built McMansion in the middle of an abandoned, half-built subdivision, has bizarre holes broken into the walls with baby monitor cameras pointed at them.

French's setting of perfect homes surrounded by the gutted, skeletal remains of a developer's dream-turned-nightmare gives the entire story an eerie, zombie-like feeling that permeates the entire novel.

Admittedly, I found the initial premise of this mystery particularly compelling, but that's not what made this the kind of read I stayed up far too late for with no regrets.

What struck me most about this installment was French's research into real police procedures. The meticulous details she includes gives the reader insight into how actual investigations work but ultimately serve as an unobtrusive way to flesh out Kennedy's character. There's paperwork, bureaucracy, coordination between forensic techs and loaner detectives, etc. Handled poorly, that could make for tedious reading. In French's hands, it's insight that adds another dimension to solving the case.

Interestingly enough, I didn't like Kennedy when I first saw him through Frank's eyes in Faithful Place, but here I found myself relating to him on multiple levels (I'm pretty sure there've been people who disliked me for being a rather straight arrow, too, but like Kennedy, my family history and past don't allow me to be any other way).

Kennedy's sister in this novel is severely mentally ill and I've read some reviews that criticize French's handling of this character because her mental illness is her solely defining trait. I disagree with this critique, largely because I've had people with untreated mental illness in my own life. French's portrayal of what it is to live that experience may not be pretty or kind, but reality rarely is. I found it to be a pretty spot-on portrayal. The fact is, when a person is that mentally ill and completely untreated -- and Kennedy's sister is -- quite frankly that does become the person's defining trait. Especially when their mental illness is what makes associating with that person or having them in your life so difficult. When it's a family member especially the mental illness can become a thing unto itself, absolutely subsuming the person and their relationships. As far as I'm concerned, French wrote this with a brutal honesty so raw I had to put down the book and take a break several times.

Perhaps at this point, I'm simply biased. I love Tana French's writing. As a writer, I appreciate the unseen research and technique that goes into crafting her stories and I find the settings, characters and plots compelling. Every time I sit down to review one of her books, I try to find something to critique. I simply don't, and that's just fine with me. Besides, I'm sure the two people in the world who actually read this blog don't mind, either.

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander MacCall Smith (A Sunday Philosophy Club mystery)

2016-03-20T21:35:00.001-07:00

The eponymous first book in Alexander McCall Smith's Sunday Philosophy Club series humbled me.

The second installment in the series, Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, expanded my musical horizons by introducing me to Many Waters Cannot Quench Love and John Ireland, for which I will be eternally grateful.

More than that, however, once again I found myself happily mentally noshing on the philosophical and ethical conundrums presented to Isabel throughout the book. Although Isabel certainly meddles, this time a a man with a heart transplant asks her for help when he begins to have visions of what he may believe may be his donor's murderer. Questions of cellular memory, the afterlife (and being open-minded enough to grant at least the possibility of an afterlife legitimacy), and even romance arise as Isabel finds herself drawn into her new friend's problem.

Meanwhile, Isabel is forced to confront her feelings for Jamie (at least to some degree) and even indulges her less philosophical and ethical side, deftly preventing from becoming a boring Mary Sue and nicely shading in some depth to her character.

Once again, McCall Smith has given us a Scottish cozy that I enjoyed like a delicious, but messy pastry. At the end, there were some crumbs left, and like so many of Life's philosophical questions, the answer wasn't neat and tidy. But the path to finding it was satisfying as ever. From her niece Kat's shop to a rural bookstore, McCall's talent for drawing a reader into an environment with wholly believable characters makes this another successful installment.

I am beginning to love these books for what they are. Often, I pause reading to Google a word (few books challenge my vocabulary, but both of these installments have), a song, even an instrument (in this case, the contrabasoon). I always learn something and, because the ethical questions presented are interesting (even when they're the "fake" ones Isabel reviews for The Journal of Applied Ethics), just getting to mull those over is a bit like being able to continue to read while doing something else like the dishes.

The books are also a welcome respite when I need a break from many of the darker authors I read such as Denise Mina, Charles Todd, Tana French or Alex Grecian. The are cozies, a sub-genre I admit with chagrin I likely would still be snobbishly dismissing were it not for this series.

I was planning to read these around Christmas time every year, since my husband gifted himself into that tradition, but I already have the third installment and highly doubt I'll be able to wait that long this time.

The Black Country by Alex Grecian (A Scottland Yard Murder Squad mystery)

2016-02-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

Alex Grecian, the author of the Scotland Yard Murder Squad mystery series, also writes a graphic novel series called Proof, the first volume of which I just received from the hubby as a Valentine's Day gift.

Though I haven't read it yet, a quick page-huff (what is it about the tantalizing smell of a new book? Or an old one, for that matter? Any fellow book-huffers out there?) and glance through indicates the graphic novel series, like the first two Grecian mystery novels, could easily be classified as horror as well.

And though I do not consider myself a fan of horror, either books or films (though I do enjoy the occasional ghost or Faustian devil story), I am now more a fan of Alex Grecian than ever. And I think it's due to the depth added to Grecian's stories by integrating horror.

Which brings me to the surprise of The Black Country, Grecian's second installment in the Scottland Yard Murder Squad series. I confess it took me a while to read this book because the premise didn't pique my interest. Inspector Water Day and Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith are sent to a rural coal mining town when a prominent family disappears.

I should have known better than to doubt Grecian. From soot-covered blankets of snow to grim-faced workers who trudge silently to their shifts, there is a sinister undercurrent that imbues every page of this book. Adding to that is the fact that many of the village homes are literally sinking into the hollowed-out ground beneath them. But of course, the owners have nowhere else to go. And then there's there's the creepy children.

In a previous post on this series's first installment, I rhapsodized about the best nightmare scene I had ever read (a passage I read aloud over the phone to a friend of mine that actually produces his own horror hosting show and is a Rondo Award winning horror blogger; he loved it). The opening vignette in this book is of the same caliber, a bar Grecian does not fail to meet during the rest of the story.

As Day and Hammersmith race against the clock and battle the small-town circling of the wagons of the residents, the reader is constantly put off balance by vignettes that reveal a killer, though not necessarily the same killer Scottland Yard is searching for.

To say more without spoilers would be difficult, so I will only add the one minor criticism I have, which is that Grecian does tend to rely quite a bit on dialogue for character development. That's not a bad thing in and of itself -- it's a great tool, especially when one is as good as he is at giving characters different voices as he is -- but I think he forgets sometimes that novel readers don't have a visual cue for physical action the way a graphic novel reader does. At times, the extended dialogue felt a bit stilted and broke the narrative flow.

Not nearly enough, however, to take away from the book as a whole. I already own the third installment in the series and can't wait to begin it...after I read Proof, of course.

Fatal Enquiry by Will Thomas (A Barker and Llewelyn mystery)

2015-11-08T16:46:00.000-07:00

A Fatal Enquiry, Will Thomas' first entry into the Barker and Llewelyn series after a multi-year hiatus, is at once a relief and a disappointment.

First, the good: Llewelyn returns in fine form, his narrative voice as clear as ever and, though a bit wizened from several years of working with Barker, still shows all the affability, cockiness and impetuousness of his 21 years.

Thomas' Victorian London is also still intact, redolent with historical places that range from cafes attached to Masonic lodges to Westminster Abbey to shabby Thames waterfronts.

The plot of this installment, during which Barker and Llewelyn are on the run from various parties after Barker is framed for murder by his Moriarty-esque nemises, is well-thought out and interesting enough to keep on turning pages.

But.

There was something desperate about this installment, which often felt like a thinly-veiled advertisement for the previous books in the series as well as a mad grab for the American action mystery set. Some action is fine, of course. There's no point in reading a mystery in which the detectives are always safe as houses, after all. And fight scenes in this series in particular make sense since martial arts is very much a part of who Barker is. And it makes sense Barker would train Llewelyn and that Llewelyn would need to use that training. But all the running around and fighting just felt tedious in way it never has before.

Thomas has also developed an exasperating habit of unnecessarily recapping what happened in the last few pages. If I just read about how three Scotland Yard officers were thwarted from capturing the pair while they're running on a bridge, don't begin the next chapter with a summary. It read like a not-so-subtle humblebrag, as though Thomas were playing at bashfully saying, “Look at what an immensely entertaining scene I just wrote! Aren't you glad you're reading this?”

Well, I was. Until the fourth recap.

Adding to the narrative disruption, beloved characters and places from previous novels were gratuitously shoved into this story. It's as though Thomas felt if he didn't have Llewelyn go to the Barbados for a mocha and smoke the pipe with his name above it, all while philosophizing with Israel Zangwill, his fan base would disappear (we won't).

Likewise, Barker's ward and partner were both shoehorned into the story, though the latter served well to shed some light on Barker's mysterious past (which was, sadly, predictable and unimaginative; hint: a woman fueled the animosity between Barker and his nemesis).

On one hand, I get it. Readers like me return to mystery character series precisely because of the characters we come to know and love. I look forward to seeing Billy in every Maisie Dobbs mystery and of course enjoy it when Ian Rutledge's sister makes an appearance.

But here, Dummolard and Israel and even Mac to some degree just got in the way of, you know, the actual plot.

And, while Barker's nemesis Nightwine was great when he first appeared, here he became a rather lazy Moriarty rip-off. The femme fatal wasn't much more compelling, either. Of course she's a stunning blonde assassin, and of course she's kinda-sorta-not-really a victim of circumstance. Yawn.

(How I wish just once a femme fatal could be frumpy or clumsy or have a poor sense of fashion or wear sensible shoes because walking around London to reconnoiter a target must be hell on one's feet! Imagine a hero falling in love with a woman who is less than beautiful but has other charms to recommend her. But no, surely if that were to happen the entire niche publishing industry of Victorian mystery series would collapse, I suppose.)

In short, I wish Thomas would have just let the story he was trying to tell be the story. We'll come back to see Mac or Dummolard another day, we promise.

Field of Blood by Denise Mina (A Paddy Meehan mystery)

2015-11-08T00:37:00.003-07:00

Denise Mina, as I’ve mentioned in previous reviews of her work, certainly falls on the darker side of the spectrum in terms of setting, characters (even protagonists) and stories. The residents of Mina's Glasgow are often flawed in ways we can all recognize, if not relate to, and usually struggle to keep their head above water as they deal with circumstances of ethnicity, geography and, usually, class.

To read a Denise Mina novel is to see the world reflected in a brutally objective, but always compelling and artfully executed, mirror.

This would make for dreary reading were it not for her deadly wit, strangely reminiscent of Jane Austen in its often cynical social commentary.

In Field of Blood, the first installment of the Paddy Meehan series, Mina’s gift for showing how social mores and family ties ultimately control us all are in fine form, though there is less humor.

Paddy Meehan, A Glasgow native named after a real-life man wrongly convicted of murder and ultimately redeemed by the dogged work of an enterprising journalist, is a copyboy determined to become a journalist herself.

That backdrop alone – a Glasgow press room in early 1980s, when no women need apply and reporters openly drink on shift at the pub next door, long before print’s quick demise under the monolithic internet is even a speculative thought– makes for great reading in and of itself. Mina does not disappoint in who she populates the newsroom with either, as always maintaining wonderfully diverse voices for each characters (in a Mina novel, characters never sound the same, even when they're from the same neighborhood or SES).

Still, readers of her Garnett Hill trilogy may feel, as I did, that there is something a bit rawer and less sophisticated in Mina’s writing in this book, and I wondered as I read this book if this wasn’t one of her earlier works.

Which isn't to say, in any way, one shouldn't read it. It is not to be missed. The brutal torture and murder of a toddler by two young boys is par for the course in terms of a dark subject matter. Moreover, this is one of the first book I have ever read where I was truly disturbed and unsettled within the first few pages, and I have read quite a bit of both true crime, crime reporting and fictional crime. But this murder lingered for reasons I won't say as it that would be a rather obnoxious spoiler.

For Paddy, the murder ultimately forces her to explore her ambition, her morals, her strengths and even her faith and family ties. The answers are sometimes messy, sometimes cruelly clear-cut, but all the more satisfying for that.

American readers, myself included, may need to brush up on the social unrest in Scotland during 1981 between Catholics and Protestants and a worker’s movement, but it is not essential to be versed in these things to understand or enjoy this book. Mina, as always, will show you, whether you’re ready or not.

Before ending this review, it's worth adding a side note. Another thing that struck me about this book is that Paddy is a woman who is overweight and, naturally, trying to lose weight. As a woman who has struggled with her weight for her entire life, I have never read a more true account of what it is like to have the all-pervasive, ever-present internal dialogue of what want has/did/didn’t/shouldn’t have/will/won’t eat, each and every day. I found it refreshing and startling, and, if I am honest, it actually forced me to acknowledge how much I have allowed my own weight to be tied to my self-worth, and not for the better.

As a writer, I’m amazed at Mina’s ability to do this as, judging from her photos, she has not struggled with her weight. But perhaps she has. At any rate, I admire her courage and, honestly, it made Paddy a much more realistic character in the end. At the very least, it speaks for Mina's technical skill in crafting and maintaining character.

So, if you’re a fan of Denise Mina to begin with, you’ll enjoy this book, but perhaps not as much as some of her others. For a series beginning though, it is a great beginning. I’m so looking forward to getting to know Paddy more in the future.

Folly du Jour by Barbara Cleverly (A Joe Sandilands mystery)

2015-06-29T01:42:00.001-07:00

In a letter to the reader at the beginning of Folly du Jour, the seventh installment of the Joe Sandilands series, Barbara Cleverly confesses that is she could travel in time she would choose to go to Paris during the 1920s (in case she couldn't get back, she'd wouldn't mind being stuck there).

To that end, there is a bit of wish-fulfillment in this installment and I don't think I'd recommend it as an introduction to the series. But I would recommend reading it.

Folly du Jour serves as a wonderful, glossy tour of post-World War I France. In its pages we witness Charles Lindbergh's landing in Paris, hear tantalizing comments about Josephine Baker's banana dance (and get to see one of her performances!), hear all about how Louis Armstrong is playing at a jazz club and even get treated to a possible resurgence of the French apache street gangs (pronounced apachu).

Fortunately, Cleverly is a skilled enough writer that none of these events seem too forced and all eventually become credibly relevant to the mystery at hand. The only exception being Lindbergh's landing (but who can blame a historical fiction writer of any genre for including that event? After all, it's Lindbergh's landing in Paris! And when in Paris...).

As for the mystery itself -- a gentleman rogue gets his throat slit at a Josephine Baker performance; a friend of Sandilands' is found kneeling beside his corpse, drenched in blood, and wrongfully arrested for the murder -- Cleverly includes good versions of all the best mystery plot devices. There's a femme fatale, a mastermind that surprised even me, a veteran armchair sleuth, and a fantastic, satisfying ending confrontation. Sandilands is joined by his friend and French counterpart, a character I wouldn't mind seeing more of in the future.

The gentleman diplomat who is wrongly accused of murder, Sir George Jardine, is equally affable company.

Where most authors would run a risk of doing too much with too many people, Cleverly manages to create a smooth, but engrossing, read. But be warned -- it is somehow lighter, more "fun" than some of the earlier books in this series, although the murder and its motive are brutal. One glimpses some parts of the seedy Paris underground, but doesn't get to be in it. Everything feels like it has been polished to a bright shine and airbrushed with the author's own nostalgia.

And, oddly, Cleverly seems positively obsessed with the word "louche." Don't get me wrong, that is a great word that Cleverly has perfect opportunity to use. But it seemed to crop up at least once every few chapters. It was such a surprising, rookie mistake it was a tad distracting.

Again, however, the story doesn't suffer for this. That being said, I would like to see more on the character development, long-term plot arc front. There was an awkward coffee with a certain lady in the last book...

But then, I suppose that's why we read mystery series, isn't it?

The Likeness by Tana French (A Dublin Murder Squad mystery)

2015-06-29T00:32:00.003-07:00

The novel is told from the point of view Cassie Maddox, Rob's partner and best friend from In the Woods, after the events of that book. However, it is not necessary to read the books in order as the Dublin Murder Squad books offer a kaleidoscopic view of the various detectives.

For some who read The Likeness, the third installment of Tana French's brilliant Dublin Murder Squad series, the premise is simply insurmountable.

Briefly, Cassie is pulled back into being an undercover detective when a young woman -- her physical doppelganger -- is killed. The woman was part of a collegiate quartet who have all bought a house together and are fixing it up while completing their master's degrees in various humanities fields. The police tell the remaining trio that, miraculously, Cassie's doppelganger has survived being brutally stabbed and Cassie is inserted into the home.

Some readers just can't get past the idea that Cassie can look so much like the victim that she fools the friends. As for myself, I love Tana French's writing so much I'm willing to go wherever she wants to take me. And the suspension of disbelief is easier to acquiesce to than one might think, thanks to French's uncanny ability to write so completely from the point of view of her protagonist.

If anything, the doppelganger aspect adds a depth to Cassie's character that makes this installment one of the most literary mysteries I've ever read. It also serves a crucial function in building the novel's suspense. This is because the friends have created an almost unhealthy proxy family together, but one that also offers safety and comfort to Cassie. Having been orphaned at a young age and raised by caring but distant relatives, Cassie has never known, but has always yearned for, this kind of closeness. French pulls the reader so completely into the group's insular world that as boundaries and ethics blur for Cassie, so do they for the reader. When the psychological danger of this emotionally brittle state becomes untenable, it is but one cymbal crashing in an entire percussive assault of suspense.

And, French is not unrealistic about the doppelganger's "return" to the house, either. French is not an amateur writer and it shows. Cassie has several excruciating moments of panic when she doesn't know certain things about the murder victim that no amount of police background could uncover. The other characters have similar moments of confusion and doubt. All of this only serves to add an undercurrent of suspense to the novel.

Further, the story -- or rather, stories -- The Likeness encompasses are so much more than the doppelganger aspect. The plot turns upon well-explored themes of complex friendships, human nature, youth, the impact one's immediate environment can have on them and family.

The mystery itself is meticulously plotted and the build towards the resolution has the deliciously slow pacing of a Hitchcock film. A minor sub-plot that acts as a story-within-a-story interlude, equally compelling and seamlessly relevant to the investigation, is like an extra layer of delicious icing on an already decadent dessert.

As in the previous French novels, the voice of the protagonist is completely distinct from Rob's voice in In the Woods and Frank's in Faithful Place. Again, many writers can write a character effectively in the first person. What French does, however, is something entirely different. It is sometimes difficult to believe Faithful Place and The Likeness were penned by the same author, so incredibly distinct is each voice.

To call French's books a mysteries is to give them short shrift; they are so character-driven, artfully written and meticulously plotted they read and feel like novels.

French is a writer who clearly does her research and puts as much, if not more, work into her writing as art. And it shows, every time.

That there happens to be a mystery being solved seems less like a focal point of French's books than a concurrent theme. If there is ever room for commercial genre fiction to acknowledge the "literary mystery" openly, the Dublin Murder Squad series will be a great example of it.

A Burial at Sea by Charles Finch (A Charles Lenox mystery)

2015-04-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

One of the few things better than a mystery set during the cold, foggy nights of Victorian London is a mystery that takes place on a ship of the Royal Navy during the same era.

Something about the creaking wood and restless canting of an old ship, or the glory of a full sail clip into a rising sun and saltwater spray, simply begs for intrigue, murder and (one can only hope) mutiny. After all, there's nowhere for suspects to escape to except Davy Jones' locker, adding a wonderful tension to even mundane interactions.

Charles Finch, like other British mystery authors before him*, answers a call to the water in A Burial At Sea, the fifth installment of the Charles Lenox mysteries. It does not disappoint.

The confinement of a ship at sea gives nautical mysteries a classic, drawing-room whodunnit feel but that framework is only as good as the writer working within it. Without believable, unique characters even the most well-established ship and setting will sink into flat, two-dimensional stereotypes of men at sea.

Fortunately, Charles Finch does not run into this problem at all. The characters, of which there are quite a few, are easy to keep track of because they each have a unique voice. And, there's the subplot of Lenox's diplomatic mission as well, which finishes the book nicely.

Briefly, Charles Lenox is sent on a diplomatic mission to France, one that puts him aboard the H.M.S. Lucy. It is nearly impossible to say more and still uphold my promise to never re-write a plot or give spoilers, but suffice it say that all the key ingredients -- secrets, jealousies, rivalries, friendships sealed with saltwater, etc. -- are all present and accounted for, but twisted just enough to keep from being predictable.

I've written before about Finch's ability to use the theme of class disparity deftly as both a plot device and for character development, but Lenox at sea is in an especially fascinating position. On the one hand, Lenox still a gentleman and passenger. Yet, at least while at sea, whatever his standing on land the captain, out of pure necessity, outranks Lenox at sea. There is a convincing scene during which ballast has to be explained to Lenox and the sailor is so shocked that one might not know this he forgets to call Lenox "sir." Lenox, naturally, does not note or point this out (honestly, where have impeccable manners like Lenox's gone? Sigh.). The new hierarchy dynamic is intriguing and adds a new dimension to the social stratification prevalent in the previous novels.

The main strength in this installment, however, is the characters aboard the ship, one of whom happens to be Lenox's nephew (Finch writes young men very well, incidentally).

And, as ever, Finch weaves historical fact into his fictitious story with the deft skill of a sailmaker. The long-term plot arc proceeds apace (sorry, no spoilers here!) and Lenox eventually returns to land...and duties that may take him farther away from his sleuthing.

Whether Lenox can survive swallowing a few red herrings while attempting to keep alive is more than enough intrigue to keep the pages turning.

See: Bruce Alexander's Watery Grave, an installment in the Sir John Fielding mystery series, for another wonderful mystery aboard a Royal Navy ship, set during the Georgian period.

Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear (A Maisie Dobbs mystery)

2015-03-07T17:15:00.003-07:00

Ah, internet reviews. Is there anything more entertaining, fascinating, repulsive and compelling? Few things can restore one's faith in humanity, or obliterate it, in the span of mere seconds the way a stream of people suddenly given a virtual bully pulpit can.

When it comes to the Maisie Dobbs series on Goodreads, comments abound from readers who love Maisie and the series, but grow weary of our heroine's Pollyanna perfection. It's a concern I've echoed myself, in fact.

Amongst the many reviews for Elegy for Eddie, however, a particularly astute Goodreads user articulated a great insight into the Maisie Dobbs series and another reason some readers struggle with it. The reader said Jacqueline Winspear was moving away from mystery genre conventions and gravitating more towards writing novels.

I couldn't agree more, but unlike some readers who are disgruntled by this shift, I think Elegy for Eddie exemplifies why this sea change is actually something to look forward to. This installment features themes that necessitate a character complexity that is difficult for the rigid constraints of commercial genre fiction to accommodate.

Basically, Winspear is transcending from the commercial mystery genre into literary fiction, in which the whodunnit is but one thread woven through a complex tapestry of humanity.

For example, Masie, adjusting to newly inherited wealth and in an increasingly serious relationship with the son of her former employer, finds herself struggling spiritually and mentally in this installment.

Her inner struggle with sudden wealth syndrome manifests in the real world when Maisie's working-class past is thrust directly into her present, very financially comfortable professional life. Briefly, Maisie is asked to solve the murder of one of the Covent Garden costermongers her father used to work with. Those asking are the victim's surviving friends, men who knew Maisie as "Frankie's girl."

Covent Garden today

Winspear's writing shines in interactions such as these. Maisie is forced to confront the somewhat awkward reality that she has indeed done better than her father and his peers financially. She is now an educated, independent and adult woman.

But Maisie finds herself struggling -- just a bit -- to think of herself as an adult in the presence of these men, all of whom suddenly address her as "Miss Dobs" and "ma'am." How can she accept the payment they offer? But how could she hurt their pride and not?

Judging by some of the more negative reviews on both Amazon and Goodreads, this is the kind of introspection that some readers don't have patience for, but I feel lends depth to a character that was in serious danger of becoming a two-dimensional Mary Sue.

This book is also one of the better examples I have ever read in which a complete portrait of the victim is painted through realistic answers to the investigator's questions. So often mystery authors make the mistake of having friends or acquaintances of the murder victim(s) "remember" things in a way people in real life just don't, using well-articulated, perceptive language to describe anecdotes in crisp, pristine detail. Some writers can pull this off without deflating the story (after all, this is pretty much the modus operandi of the entire Holmes canon). But usually recountings like that come across as implausible given the human mind's fallibility when it comes to memory. Winspear avoids this in Elegy for Eddie and, for the most part, the characters' recollections and anecdotes are realistic.

Unfortunately, Maisie's character development isn't quite enough to save the surprising plot sloppiness in this installment. Without going into a synopsis rewrite or spoilers, suffice it to say there are several murders and only one of them is actually explained in any real way. Some mysteries can have realistic, sloppy endings and are improved by them. After all, real life detectives do have cases that are never solved. But, perhaps because the decisions Maisie makes are so jarringly discordant with who she has been up until this point, it doesn't work here.

So, although this is not one of the best Maisie Dobbs mysteries, it was one of the best Maisie Dobbs books in the series. Much of that is due to the fact that Maisie is forced to accept that she must change as a person.

She is called on to the carpet for her do-gooder meddling in people's lives, confronted with the fact that perhaps her generosity with the Beales might be justifiable cause for some resentment and forced to acknowledge that she doesn't quite know how to maintain her independence while being in a relationship.

Maisie's growth and change is what makes this installment more "novel-esque." It is also what will have me eager to read the next installment. But unfortunately, the mystery suffers for it.

The Sunday Philosophy Club (A Sunday Philosophy Club Mystery) by Alexander McCall Smith

2015-01-31T16:53:00.005-07:00

I received Alexander McCall Smith’s The Sunday Philosophy Club as a Christmas gift from the hubby and have to admit I was pretty worried.

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to mysteries. I like my mysteries to be literary, character driven and cerebral. The majority of series I read don't have a lot of action, per se, and are generally penned by English and Irish authors.

So when I mercilessly tore the meticulously folded and taped Christmas wrapping from the brand-new, sharp-cornered hardcover copy of this book (is there anything better than a brand-new hardcover?) I felt no small bit of trepidation when I read the author's name.

The only thing I knew about McCall Smith as an author was that he also wrote the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. That wasn't a good thing because, I'm forced to admit, I'd assumed that entire series was grocery store beach reading aimed at the stay-at-home-mom and Oprah book club set. Yes, I admit with deep shame, I made this assumption without ever even have read any of them. I'm not proud of my cover-judging here, but I must be honest about it. If any book could teach me not to do that ever again, it was this one.

I am both pleased and relieved to report I was dreadfully, embarrassingly wrong about McCall Smith as an author and the book. The book was, I admit with some chagrin, also far smarter than I ever would of thought, sprinkled with references from avante garde composers to even modern philosophers.

The Sunday Philosophy Club was an absolutely delightful read. Its protagonist, Isabel Dalhousie, is a wealthy Scottish woman who edits an academic philosophy review. Dalhousie is independent and enjoys her life unapologetically, which is a refreshing change from most female protagonists, with the possible exception of Maisie Dobbs. Isabel enjoys doing her morning crossword puzzles, her relationship with her niece and mulling over the philosophical and ethical quandaries presented by everyday life. And, naturally, sticking her nose where it doesn't belong, which is how she becomes embroiled in a mystery.

In this case, Isabel attends a concert after which a young man falls to his death from the gods of the auditorium. As the man falls (is pushed?) head down towards the lower seats, Isabel ever so briefly catches a glimpse of his face. Isabel is haunted by the experience and though she almost successfully pushes it from her mind, she ultimately decides (through pretty sound philosophical reasoning) that she has a moral obligation to discover what really happened.

In addition to creating a refreshingly different protagonist, McCall's writing is clean and pleasant. His narrative style evokes the British cozy genre, or in this case, a Scottish cozy. The dialogue is very well done and flows naturally, adding to the depth of the characters instead of simply moving the plot along.

The mystery itself was intriguing, though not gripping. It acts more as a fulcrum for the characters and setting, but personally I was fine with that. Since it’s a character driven book in the best of ways, there isn’t a ton of action in this book and a lot of introspection.

Finally, there is a very high-brow, sharp wit peppered throughout the book that caused me to give an unexpected guffaw on more than one occasion. I enjoyed learning about Scotland and the idea of approaching life from a primarily philosophical perspective. Even the ending was philosophical, a feat for which I give a mental hat tip to McCall Smith.

The snob in me considers this a “guilty pleasure” read, but the I-just-love-to-read part of me (you know, the other 99.8 percent) can’t wait to get the next installment.

So if you’re looking for a what-happens-next read, this isn’t for you. But if you like people and are fascinated by the quietly eccentric among them, hurry to the bookstore or library now. You’re going to want to meet Isabel.

Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler (A Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery)

2014-05-04T16:17:00.002-07:00

Christopher Fowler is the literary equivalent of a genius mad scientist.

Never has the first installment of a historical mystery series bowled me over so completely. Reading Full Dark House, the first installment in Fowler's Peculiar Crimes Unit series,was a little like falling in love by being hit over the head and then hugged.

Where, or perhaps, how to begin...?

First, the writing: the narrative flips back and forth between London during World War II when the two protagonists, Arthur Bryant and John May, are in their early twenties and modern-day London, when the two men are comfortably settling in to their old age.

As a narrative device, the juxtaposition between the men at the different points in their lives, and London herself, help give the story a quick pace that clicks along well.

The friends have seven decades of work partnership and friendship behind them and although this is only the first installment of an entire series the depth of and intimacy of their lifetime together are portrayed convincingly. Not since Holmes and Watson has a deep, sincere and affectionate friendship between two men been better portrayed. Bryant and May have been the constant in each other's lives, through marriages, divorce, children, grandchildren, the introduction of technology in their work and a myriad of small and large markers of the passing of time.

Second, Fowler has found an entirely new way to interweave research into his narrative. As the existence of my blog indicates, I read a lot of historical mysteries set in London during and after World Wars I and II. So I was surprised at how much I learned from this book about how the war impacted the daily lives of people living in London. There are countless mundane, but fascinating, details woven in the parts of the story that take place during the Blitz, such as the forced intimacy of sleeping in the subway tunnels with strangers.

Third, the dual mysteries are both well plotted, though I did figure the solution out long before the end of the book. That did not, however, keep me from wanting to continue reading.

Arthur Bryant is eccentric and open-minded to the occult, paranormal activity and the afterlife which make him a very refreshing detective. He could grow tedious in his scatterbrained-ness (he is undoubtedly a sponge for information, but doesn't organize it in his mind), and that's where John May helps to balance him out.

The backdrop of the London theater scene in the midst of the blitz was fascinating and Fowler's experience as a horror writer shines through with each body that turns up.

Finally, how many series begin with the death of a main protagonist?