Crumbling Edifices of Murder Monday
Feb. 1st, 2016 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bArchived from Livejournal
What I've Finished Reading
The Silkworm. Ouch, Rowling, that was nasty! I think she gets away with it though. I don't know. It's nowhere near as good a confrontation scene as the immortal Leg Incident and its lead-up in The Cuckoo's Calling, though it is a good solution to a difficult problem and very cleverly seeded.
Strike's reckless disregard for his own health and safety in the service of The Case is as pronounced as before -- here he puts so much stress on his knee stump that he wrecks the cartilage and has to go without his prosthesis while it heals, which leads to Robin having to clandestinely drive him to a suspect interview in terrible weather because the car rental place didn't have any leg-optional cars. Get it together, Strike! And Robin is going to take a surveillance course! I'm enjoying her increasing indispensability. Things are even a little better between Robin and Matthew: at one point, they had an actual conversation about Robin's interest in detective work! The relationship is probably still scheduled for demolition, but it's nice to see Matthew trying a little just the same.
Fair warning: this novel has some very grisly details, and the grisliness is integral to the story. I think Rowling is doing a great job managing the inevitable tension between "fictional homicide investigations are the best entertainment" and "wait, no, murder is actually horrible," but I wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to read about this particular murder.
Also read: The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters. This book was recommended to me as a cheerful mystery-comedy-adventure in which an independent-minded late-Victorian spinster goes on archaeological digs, written by a real Egyptologist! How fun! Unfortunately, the book and I didn't get off to a good start. I found myself immediately disliking the narrator (Amelia Peabody, the spinster-adventurer) both as a character and as a narrative device. The very first line is a smarmy joke for the benefit of the present; soon after, we are forced to listen to Amelia cataloging her own "plain" (but forceful and interesting!) features in response to an innocuous comment by a nondescript male visitor, and it just goes on stumbling and elbowing its way through the rest of the action. Amelia meets a romantically self-dramatizing young woman named Evelyn, whose narrative sections worked a lot better for me as comedy than Amelia's, and some archaeologists; there is a Sinister Plot to foil, and at the end everyone gets married because the book is about to be over. Well, I can understand the book being almost over, and it's not like I was planning to devour the rest of the series anyway, but still! I was promised independent spinster adventures!
I'm not sure why I found it as boring as I did (so boring that I was reading NKVD telegrams to perk me up between chapters). None of the characters were interesting to me, even as parodies, but why not? In order to answer that question, I'd have to read it more closely, which I don't have much motivation to do. I guessed the culprit right away, but that wouldn't bother me if there were other things to like. The narrative voice wound up being sort of the worst of both worlds: all the smug imperiousness and cultural insensitivity you would expect from a real Victorian memoirist, none of the richness of detail. It's probably not bad at all -- just not my thing.
What I'm Reading Now
The corpse shows up early in Scales of Justice (early by Marsh standards, so about eighty pages in), surrounded by suspicious objects, and it's a good thing: these people are a bit dull on their own. (I do like the relentlessly competent village nurse, though). Luckily, Alleyn is on the scene, razor in hand, ready to catch all their hideous secrets in a gleaming silver bowl.
I'm about halfway into In the Company of Sherlock Holmes -- a mixed bag, but a pretty good mix. I especially liked "The Curious Affair of the Italian Art Dealer" by Sara Paretsky, which is a crossover with another fictional detective, and "The Memoirs of Silver Blaze" by Michael Sims, which is a Sherlock Holmes Adventure told from the POV of a horse (in the tradition of Black Beauty), with a happy ending for the horse.
What I'm Going to Read Next
I meant to get Career of Evil from the library, but it was out with like 8 holds already on it, so I'm going to check back later, and pretend that Cormoran Strike is using the intervening time to get some sleep and maybe even eat something other than takeout. Justice is not served by your stubborn self-immolation, Strike! Even the greatest detectives need to rest. :(
What I've Finished Reading
The Silkworm. Ouch, Rowling, that was nasty! I think she gets away with it though. I don't know. It's nowhere near as good a confrontation scene as the immortal Leg Incident and its lead-up in The Cuckoo's Calling, though it is a good solution to a difficult problem and very cleverly seeded.
Strike's reckless disregard for his own health and safety in the service of The Case is as pronounced as before -- here he puts so much stress on his knee stump that he wrecks the cartilage and has to go without his prosthesis while it heals, which leads to Robin having to clandestinely drive him to a suspect interview in terrible weather because the car rental place didn't have any leg-optional cars. Get it together, Strike! And Robin is going to take a surveillance course! I'm enjoying her increasing indispensability. Things are even a little better between Robin and Matthew: at one point, they had an actual conversation about Robin's interest in detective work! The relationship is probably still scheduled for demolition, but it's nice to see Matthew trying a little just the same.
Fair warning: this novel has some very grisly details, and the grisliness is integral to the story. I think Rowling is doing a great job managing the inevitable tension between "fictional homicide investigations are the best entertainment" and "wait, no, murder is actually horrible," but I wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to read about this particular murder.
Also read: The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters. This book was recommended to me as a cheerful mystery-comedy-adventure in which an independent-minded late-Victorian spinster goes on archaeological digs, written by a real Egyptologist! How fun! Unfortunately, the book and I didn't get off to a good start. I found myself immediately disliking the narrator (Amelia Peabody, the spinster-adventurer) both as a character and as a narrative device. The very first line is a smarmy joke for the benefit of the present; soon after, we are forced to listen to Amelia cataloging her own "plain" (but forceful and interesting!) features in response to an innocuous comment by a nondescript male visitor, and it just goes on stumbling and elbowing its way through the rest of the action. Amelia meets a romantically self-dramatizing young woman named Evelyn, whose narrative sections worked a lot better for me as comedy than Amelia's, and some archaeologists; there is a Sinister Plot to foil, and at the end everyone gets married because the book is about to be over. Well, I can understand the book being almost over, and it's not like I was planning to devour the rest of the series anyway, but still! I was promised independent spinster adventures!
I'm not sure why I found it as boring as I did (so boring that I was reading NKVD telegrams to perk me up between chapters). None of the characters were interesting to me, even as parodies, but why not? In order to answer that question, I'd have to read it more closely, which I don't have much motivation to do. I guessed the culprit right away, but that wouldn't bother me if there were other things to like. The narrative voice wound up being sort of the worst of both worlds: all the smug imperiousness and cultural insensitivity you would expect from a real Victorian memoirist, none of the richness of detail. It's probably not bad at all -- just not my thing.
What I'm Reading Now
The corpse shows up early in Scales of Justice (early by Marsh standards, so about eighty pages in), surrounded by suspicious objects, and it's a good thing: these people are a bit dull on their own. (I do like the relentlessly competent village nurse, though). Luckily, Alleyn is on the scene, razor in hand, ready to catch all their hideous secrets in a gleaming silver bowl.
I'm about halfway into In the Company of Sherlock Holmes -- a mixed bag, but a pretty good mix. I especially liked "The Curious Affair of the Italian Art Dealer" by Sara Paretsky, which is a crossover with another fictional detective, and "The Memoirs of Silver Blaze" by Michael Sims, which is a Sherlock Holmes Adventure told from the POV of a horse (in the tradition of Black Beauty), with a happy ending for the horse.
What I'm Going to Read Next
I meant to get Career of Evil from the library, but it was out with like 8 holds already on it, so I'm going to check back later, and pretend that Cormoran Strike is using the intervening time to get some sleep and maybe even eat something other than takeout. Justice is not served by your stubborn self-immolation, Strike! Even the greatest detectives need to rest. :(
