The Sleep of Monday Produces Murder

[evelyn_b]

What I've Finished Reading

Death of an Expert Witness by P. D. James. This book is neither funny nor suspenseful, but it has a pleasant pace and a reasonably good style. We get a tour of all the people who might want the victim dead, and then the corpse - a different corpse from the corpse that opened the book, this one is the titular expert witness. He's got secrets; they've all got secrets. Some of the secrets are painful and embarrassing in a mundane way and some of them are gothic. They are collected by a pair of perfectly serviceable professional detectives whom it is not necessary to tell apart. In conclusion, living is awful and death is tedious and humiliating. It was all right! I'm glad I was able to finish a P. D. James again, and maybe one day I'll read another one.

Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell takes a very different approach to life and death. This is the kind of book I thought all mysteries were going to be when I first started reading mysteries: a tongue-in-cheek puzzle-comedy about the leisurely pursuit of justice over assorted liqueurs. A hapless young lawyer goes on vacation to Venice and accidentally winds up with a corpse in her bed, but her friends back in London know she's far too clumsy to have killed a man. Luckily, they are able to figure out what happened by reading her letters to one another at their favorite bar. These friends all talk alike to the point of being basically indistinguishable, but there's never any real need to distinguish them so it doesn't matter. The constant impenetrable archness could easily go wrong, but I don't think it actually does. It's a lot of fun.

What I'm Reading Now

Began Common Murder, an earlier Val McDermid than Conferences Can Be Murder - here Lindsay Gordon's dead girlfriend is still alive, and an ex-flame has just turned up in disconcerting circumstances. I hope this doesn't mean we're in for a love triangle. As Matthew Arnold once said, "All this murder is bad enough."

What I Plan to Read Next

Christie time again! I got The Thirteen Problems from the library (the one I'm going to have to order is The Hand of Death, which doesn't seem to be anywhere). And Crime and Punishment, an old favorite - I'm re-reading it because I'm finally going to get to The Gentle Axe.

Comments

[osprey_archer]

a tongue-in-cheek puzzle-comedy about the leisurely pursuit of justice over assorted liqueurs

I like mysteries very much as it is, but I think I might like them even more if this was their default mode. For variation they could switch out liqueurs for tea or champagne or hot chocolate or whatever other beverage of their choice.

[evelyn_b]

Now that I've had some time to adjust my expectations, I'm glad that there's more than one way to write about a murder investigation. That's as it should be! But I do like the terribly sophisticated puzzle-comedians and their beverages. I'm not sure I can give a coherent account of what makes them so appealing, though. Do you know?

[osprey_archer]

I think part of it is just that it seems so chummy? You have these detective friends sitting around drinking liqueurs and having a fun time verbally sparring, it sounds like a good time in the first place, and then they're doing it FOR JUSTICE, and who doesn't want their beverage-drinking chats with friends to lead to JUSTICE?

[thisbluespirit]

I keep meaning to read some Sarah Caudwell. I found one but it wasn't the first and I felt confused. I have another now on my TBR pile, although I don't think that's the first, either. They do look like fun, though, and fun like that isn't to be sneezed at.

Hee, I'm looking forward to hearing about the C&P detective novel!

[evelyn_b]

If you'd like me to send you a paperback copy of Adonis, I can! This is the only one I've read, so I don't know how much being the first book helps in terms of confusion, but I'd say it's worth giving another try.

I'm looking forward to reading it! Porfiry Petrovich is such an instant classic. It'll be fun to see what the author does with him & with the setting, even if the book isn't actually good. And then there's always the chance that it will be good!

[thisbluespirit]

Aww, that's very sweet of you! I think before I asked such a thing, I should at least check the library and I rather suspect I could get a bargain on Amazon that would be cheaper than the likely postage for sending things across an ocean. But I do appreciate it, and if I get desperate I shall let you know. (At the moment, I have a Daisy Dalrymple to try to easy reading and Patrick O'Brian to carry on with in less easy reading. And a large TBR pile.)

As ever, I will be interested to hear how it turns out. It's sort of reading by proxy!