Reviewing a Fish Out of His Bowl

Murder Being Once Done
by Ruth Rendell

Why is it that every author who bases a series around a single character eventually feels the need to take him out of his usual sphere and into foreign and supremely uncomfortable territory? I understand the desire to keep the series from becoming formulaic, but I would never have accused Ruth Rendell of that failing, anyway. In this book she puts Chief Inspector Wexford into an awkward position that makes him doubt himself, and thereby just made me slightly miserable with him. She made me identify with her character, but I read partly to escape from that kind of reality.

Wexford has suffered an aneurysm, and is on vacation in order to recover. One problem--the nephew with whom he and his wife are staying is also a policeman, one who even outranks the dear old curmudgeon. Inevitably, Wexford gets drawn into a case, and his vacation quickly comes to a halt, even if he is only "unofficially" involved with someone else's investigation.  Wisely, his wife has the sense to throw up her hands in exasperation and cease trying to make him behave.

The actual mystery involved here is definitely up to Rendell's usual standard, which more than makes up for any seeming deficiencies. Having once pushed past the setting and gotten to the meat of the novel, I was intrigued by the plot and impressed by the variety of devices used to keep me interested (and puzzled). I enjoyed it quite a bit, but sincerely hope we go back with Wexford to Kingsmarkham where he belongs for the next book.

A Review of "Unnatural Death"

Ah, a day without Lord Peter Wimsey is like a day without food for your brain...

March 8, 2012

Unnatural Death

by Dorothy L. Sayers

I cannot believe that a mystery writer can make it ridiculously obvious from the very beginning who the murderer is, make other vital information so clear that I figured it out 150 pages before the detectives did, and make one of the primary opening characters turn out to be utterly annoying and completely inconsequential by the end, and yet STILL keep me riveted--and even still keep my GUESSING!!!--to the very end.  How is that even POSSIBLE?!  I knew who did it, I knew the person's dirty little secrets, I even knew HOW the person did it, and yet Sayers would throw me a little curve ball in plot or wording once in a while that would leave me going, "Well, now, wait a minute...maybe I was wrong..."  It was infuriating, but still a great deal of fun.

The more I read of Lord Peter Wimsey, the more attached to him I become.  He just grows on you, like some sort of good-natured, nonsense-babbling, insidious lichen or ivy.

Review Archaeology

Now that I'm slowly returning to blogging--and to life in general--I'm looking back over my Book Lover's Journal, and finding that I have about a trillion reviews that were recorded there months ago, but never made it onto the blog!  There seems no time like the present to rectify that, especially since I need to link those reviews over to various reading challenges that I do still hope to finish before this year is out.  Anyway, let's give it the old college try, yeah?  I'll keep posting these archived reviews periodically, with the date that I initially finished the book, until hopefully we'll be caught up.

March 6, 2012

Despite my initial hesitation about Lord Peter Wimsey, by the time I was a few pages into this novel, he had made a life-long fan of me.  Dorothy L. Sayers Wimsey books are just so comfortable; never boring, just...comfortable, somehow.  (Hence the term "cozy mystery," right?)  The main characters are the kind of people with whom you could hang out happily in a pub on a long winter evening, so despite the loony circumstances that whirl all around them, they're the bastions of sanity at the center.

In this case, Wimsey's own brother, the Duke of Denver (who is as thick as two short planks and one of the dullest men alive) is accused of murder.  I don't know if the bit about a peer of the realm having to be tried by the entire House of Lords in order to be assured of getting "a jury of his peers" was true--it may STILL be, for all I know!--but it certainly made for great mental pomp and spectacle to read about!  It certainly SOUNDS like something that would true of British law.

The title of this book is hilariously apt, because Lord Peter and his sidekick, Inspector Parker, took forever to find out what actually happened, thanks to the myriad dead-end "leads" provided by an enormous collection of completely useless "witnesses".  Frustrating for our heroes, no doubt, but quite fun to read!

Review of "They Came to Baghdad"

They Came to Baghdad

by Agatha Christie

Accustomed as I am to thinking of all of Agatha Christie's novels being set in the Gilded Age or the Roaring '20s, I was astonished at first to find out that this one takes place in the thoroughly war-weary Europe of 1951.  (Indeed, I had no idea until I read the blurb at the end that Agatha Christie and I only missed being in the world at the same time by one year.  Elvis and I only missed each other by TWO WEEKS, and I've always felt rather cheated about it, even though he does annoy me mightily.  Sorry--I digress.)

The basic idea here is that a large, disparate cast of characters--primarily, a rather silly young woman--find themselves entangled in international intrigues.  Although this is only the second Agatha Christie book I've ever read, I have to say that I don't think this one is typical Christie fare, so devoted fans might be disappointed in it.  It focuses so heavily on the evil, pointless futility of war that it almost turns into a sermon near the end.

That said, however, I have to admit that I liked this book, though I really didn't expect to at first, because the heroine got on my nerves.  I've never had much use for people who habitually lie just to liven up their everyday, hum-drum lives, and Victoria Jones is the queen of the recreational liars.  However, the author quickly taught me how useful that character "flaw" can be to a woman who accidentally finds herself embroiled in espionage!

I did manage to figure out who was "behind it all" before Victoria did, which is always my main criterion for whether or not I "succeeded" in reading a mystery novel, but I think I really should have figured it out even before I did.  This book was a fascinating glimpse into Agatha Christie's mind, into the view of the Cold War world.  I'd be interested in reading her diaries or letters from the time, to find out what she was thinking as she crafted the plot.  Either way, I enjoyed it, and at least the heroine didn't do many of the stupid things that so annoy me in a lot of other books.  She's bright and very quick at thinking on her feet, even if she isn't fond of veracity.

Review of "The Hound of the Baskervilles"

The Hound of the Baskervilles

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I'm just going to announce right up front that I really liked this book.  It wasn't the most earth-shattering book I've ever read or anything, but the chemistry between Holmes and Watson simply works, and apparently will never go out of style (at least until modern English evolves to the place that Victorian English becomes archaic).  So, to set the scene...Holmes and Watson are informed by a country doctor that a friend of his, Sir Charles Baskerville, has died under suspicious, maybe even otherworldly circumstances.  The doctor fears that Sir Charles' heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, may also be in danger.  Holmes and Watson have to unravel the sinister from the superstitious and figure out what the Hell is going on, which they eventually manage to do, of course, as always.

This may be a tiny bit of a spoiler--not much of one, though, I promise; I HATE real spoilers--but I have pretty well decided that I don't like my murder mysteries to contain epilogues.  This is the second mystery I've read lately that was really good right up to the epilogue, at which point it just felt anti-climactic, as if the author had felt like taking the easy way out at the last minute.  Conan Doyle's epilogue is pretty well-crafted, and fits in with the motif of demonstrating how Sherlock Holmes is ALWAYS in command of what happens during his investigations, so it doesn't have the smack of authorial laziness as strongly as many epilogues do.  Still, I wish he'd chosen a different way to wind up the action, which was quite thrilling and thoroughly satisfying--right up until the epilogue.

So, I really enjoyed the book, and that's not a big surprise, is it?  There's a reason Holmes and Watson have been popular for over 100 years and are still going strong.

Review of "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"

After a false start due to Heinous Head Cold from Hell (I've decided that's actually its name), I think I'm finally ready to review this book.  I've progressed from thinking I was going to die, to merely wishing I was dead, to being the walking undead, to now finally just being a live lump in my chair, so I think I can do a review this time.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I KNEW that ridiculous wife that Conan Doyle insisted on giving Watson in the last book was going to be nothing but trouble!  He went to some lengths to make the woman rational, intelligent and articulate, even having Holmes comment on the fact, so it would have worked much better if he had allowed her to go on Holmes' and Watson's adventures with them.  But of course, the conventions of the time forbade that sort of thing, no matter HOW rare it was for Holmes to compliment a woman.  So, Mrs. Watson spent most of her time visiting her mother, on vacation, or waiting up late at night for her husband to return home from some dangerous caper.  Several more of the stories stated baldly at the outset that they took place BEFORE Watson's marriage, and for the last couple, Conan Doyle abandoned all pretense entirely and didn't bother to give any explanation at all for why Watson was living at Baker Street again.  It was rather annoying.

Other than that, however, this book was solid Holmes and Watson fare, enjoyable as usual and laced with humor that never goes out of fashion.  I liked it.  I just wish Conan Doyle hadn't kept creating situations to end the famous partnership, only to then change his mind and have to find ways to work around his previous messes.

Review of "The Sign of Four"

Obviously, I supported the idea of the Read It 1st pledge from the moment I first spotted it on another blog--in principle, anyway.  But I found myself thinking that taking a pledge about it was perhaps a bit extreme.  Yeah.  I'm over that now.  I just took the pledge, and invite all book bloggers to do the same.

Here's the story.  The Granada dramatizations of Sherlock Holmes, with the incomparable Jeremy Brett as the eponymous sleuth, are fabulous.  Nevertheless, they're not as good as the books--big shocker--so there you are, already knowing the whodunnit when you start reading the book.  Big mistake.  Don't get me wrong; I really enjoyed reading The Sign of Four.  I just would have enjoyed it a good deal more if I didn't already know the general outlines of the solution.

NOW, having gotten that grumble out of the way, let us proceed (as if the grumble never happened) to a review of The Sign of Four.  WARNING:  There are some serious spoilers ahead, but I promise that I at least WILL NOT REVEAL THE MURDERER, so you've still got that to look forward to, if you've never read this before and wish to do so now.

The Sign of Four

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

So, what is our favorite analytical genius up to in the latest installment?  A woman comes in search of news of her father, missing 10 years, after she gets a strange message about long-standing wrongs that need righting and a hint of incredible riches.  Before it's over, Holmes and Watson, with some unorthodox help, have searched up stream and down all over London for the world's most bizarre villains.  It's a story that takes us to the India of imperial England, through the history of an Indian uprising, and into some extraordinary reminders of the racism of the Victorian era.  It's also a reasonably gripping mystery.

SPOILER #1:  Did you know that Sherlock Holmes is a hardened cocaine user?  Yup.  That's really all I have to say about that, except that in his day, cocaine wasn't illegal yet, and lots of hard drugs were routinely prescribed and easily available.  May not want to hand a volume of Sherlock Holmes to your adventure-book-seeking kid without some parental guidance, however. 

SPOILER #2: Did you know that Dr. Watson got married in the course of this series?  I was kind of annoyed with Conan Doyle for this, honestly, because it ruined the whole male bonding, buddy books vibe that Holmes and Watson had going.  I'm glad sweet little Watson won the heart of his lady love, but I think it should've happened much later in the series.  I have a feeling this was one of Conan Doyle's numerous attempts to retire the detecting duo.  Sherlock Holmes' adoring public would never let him do so, though.

Review of "And Then There Were None"

Creepy!  Oooo, creepy, creepy stuff.  Believe it or not, this is the first Agatha Christie novel I've ever read in my 34 years of life, and now I finally see what all the fuss was about!  Before I read this, I imagined that Agatha Christie herself must have been a sort of pink-wearing, cat-loving, tea-pouring old British lady, and therefore her mysteries wouldn't be made of very stern stuff, either.  Now, I am firmly convinced that Stephen King wishes he had half the sick, twisted mind that this tough old bird had.

And Then There Were None is THE original pick-'em-off murder story, upon which Clue (both movie and boardgame) and a lot of other light-hearted nonsense has been based.  There was nothing light-hearted about this book.  10 people are lured to an island under false pretenses, bumped off one by one, and slowly go insane as they get more and more distrustful of each other.  Before it was over, I had practically considered everyone from the butler to the dining room table a suspect, and still didn't see the ending coming.  A word of warning, by-the-way; if you are at all of a nervous disposition, don't read this book late at night.  First of all, once you're about half-way through it, you won't be able to put it down and go to bed, because you'll have a desperate need to find out what the Hell is going on?!?!?!  And secondly, I finished this right before finally going to bed at an unholy hour, and the highly predictable dream dripping with homicide inevitably ensued.

I cannot give this book a full five-star rating for only one reason; after the amazing build-up of suspense and terror during the slow execution of the house guests, no ending on earth could have truly satisfied my fevered brain, and this one did not fail to disappoint.  I mean, the identity of the perpetrator certainly surprised me, but the way in which the ending was constructed felt very anti-climactic after all that lead-in time.  Still, this book is thrilling and horrifying, replete with lunatics and nut-jobs, just as any good murder mystery should be, (at least, it should if you're a long-time fan of Midsomer Murders, like me).

Review of "A Study in Scarlet"



Image from Google Books

So, it is time for me to give you the low-down on my first encounter with Sherlock Holmes!  As I've mentioned before, I have an iron-clad policy of reading series in chronological order whenever humanly possible--yes, I'm even one of those annoying people who counts The Magician's Nephew as the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia, and publication dates be damned!  Obviously, then, if I was going to dive into Sherlock Holmes at all, I had to acquire the very first novella, the installment in which Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson first meet and begin their fantastically successful partnership.  I must say, it held a few surprises for me!

First of all, I had no idea the MORMONS would feature so prominently in this tale, and let me tell you, they did not come off looking very well in the whole affair.  (Put the search terms "Doyle Mormons" into Google; you'll get a taste of what I'm talking about.)  As many others have said (this I discovered when I did the aforementioned Google search myself), whether or not Doyle had any of his facts straight about the Latter-Day Saints, his view is certainly representative of the public anti-Mormon feeling that was running quite high at the time.

The second surprise was finding out exactly how the friendship between Holmes and Watson began.  I had always pictured Watson rather like the little dog in the old Warner Brothers cartoon who follows the big dog around, constantly excited about everything and saying things like, "Can we go to that real nice restaurant tonight, Alfie?  Can we?  Huh?  Huh? Can we?"  In other words, I assumed that Watson worshipped Holmes, and Holmes tolerated Watson.  In point of fact, the great detective needed a friend quite as much as his side-kick did, which makes me like the whole arrangement even more.  Besides the loneliness factor, Watson also proved very useful in many situations which required a doctor's services, (though I know that more from Granada's made-for-tv versions of Holmes than from this book).  It was in reading the front matter of A Study in Scarlet that I learned that, in point of fact, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was sort of a composite of both his main characters, since he had to put the ideas into Holmes' mind and mouth, and had also once been a doctor by profession.

I'm sure my rating of this book comes as no surprise at all, except maybe in the fact that I didn't go the whole hog and give it a perfect score; after all, it's been popular this long for a reason.  However, I have been known to give classics bad reviews before, and probably will do so again occasionally.  This one earned its stars.  The only thing that really annoyed me about this book was Holmes' trick of spying out "military men" by their "bearing."  I could easily buy most of his deductions, but I still find it hard to believe that a man's "bearing" or demeanor, witnessed from a second-floor window across the street, could so easily tell the observer that he had been in the army.  Even if it could, the device gets a little over-used.  Otherwise, this was a page-turner, and I can highly recommend it.

Review of "The Corruptible"

(Ahh, the SuperToddler has calmed down and the house is still, so maybe I will be able to write this review tonight, after all.  We'll give it a shot and see what develops...)

NB:  My Kindle copy of The Corruptible was provided to me gratis by Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group, with the understanding that I would, in return, provide them with an honest review of the book.  I have now fulfilled my disclosure obligations, Uncle Sam.

Written by former Marine and current homicide detective Mark Mynheir, The Corruptible is a Christian murder mystery.  If that phrase sounds a little off to you as a genre description, you're not alone; I didn't realize such a thing existed, either, until I read this one.  As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I've often been a little leary of overtly Christian novels, because they usually seem to push one particular type of Christianity to the exclusion of all others, but I found this novel refreshingly free of that kind of glaring denominationalism.

Police detective Ray Quinn was forcibly retired by a gunshot wound in the first novel of this series (which I have not yet read, but now hope to read soon), and has now opened his own detective agency.  The life of a private eye is not paying as well as he might have hoped, and debts are mounting, when a very lucrative case falls into his lap.  What seems to be a straightforward missing person, however, soons turns into a homicide investigation which has Ray semi-officially working with his former colleagues in the Orlando Police Department.

Mynheir's novel was pleasantly entertaining, with a minimum of preaching and a healthy dose of page-turner plot.  Regular viewers of the hit show CSI will find a few plot points and at least one character uncomfortably familiar, especially since both are set in blistering hot cities, with an odd flavor to them that springs from their predominating business interests.  It is obvious throughout the book, however, that the author speaks from personal experience on matters of evidence-gathering and investigational techniques, and it is not surprising that various forms of popular culture will share similar details, if they've got their facts straight.

Two rather weak characters slow the work down a bit.  Crevis Creighton, the lovable but dopey sidekick, truly is loveable in a hang-dog kind of way, but has such a limited IQ that he's more of a stereotype than a well-rounded character.  The actual client in this case, Armon Meyer, suffers from the typical foibles of a rich businessman in such novels--soulless, devious, slimy with a veneer of respectability, he's utterly flat, again a sort of plot device instead of a person.

Despite those issues, however, The Corruptible was a solid read, kept me guessing until the last chapter, and is full of a wry wit that I found delightful.  I would recommend this book to anyone in search of a decent mystery, especially all those not likely to be put off by the occasional reference to religion.