Murder After Midnight Monday
Jun. 20th, 2016 12:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bArchived from Livejournal
What I've Finished Reading
Tied Up in Tinsel was all right! You can sort of tell who the killer is going to be all along, just by the relative strength of the misdirection, but finding out how it was managed is still enjoyable.
I'm not sure at what point Marsh's setups got to be reliably better than her interrogations, but this is one of those. Troy's detached interest in the eccentric millionaire with a face "like a good-looking camel" and her growing anxiety as tensions in the house come to a boil are a little more engaging than the subsequent interrogation period, with everyone sulking in drawing rooms and Alleyn being imperiously judgmental at various survivor-suspects. Anticipation about how and when The Detective Part will eventually break into and devour the novel we've been reading has become the most common source of suspense in the Alleyn series.
I was a little worried about Black as He's Painted -- it's the one where Alleyn's old school friend becomes president of a newly independent African republic -- and found myself reading it more closely than usual, on the alert for racism. In some ways it was a little better than I expected, and in some ways worse -- I didn't expect or appreciate some of Alleyn's out-of-nowhere musings on "the Negro," for example. On the plus side, there's no obvious nostalgia for the colonial period, even if Marsh does take care to make the worst of the white villains secretly Portuguese instead of British. None of the other African characters have much to do, but President Bartholomew "The Boomer" Opala is as about as complex as any Marsh major-minor character, more than some. Marsh makes all the overt racists grotesque and the "enlightened" whites a little embarrassing, and might suggest that the difference in Alleyn and Opala's political beliefs is some kind of fundamental "racial" difference, but not with too much force. It was ok.
As an Inspector Alleyn book, it's worth reading for its wealth of rare Alleyn personality catalysts. Alleyn gets a childhood, after all this time! -- it's just a couple of memories of conversations with The Boomer over herring toast at Davidson's, but they're friendly and evocative -- and Alleyn's occasionally-mentioned but seldom seen brother shows up! He is a diplomat who is embarrassed that his brother is a "cop;" Alleyn seems to dislike him because he is a stock character left over from the earliest days of the series when Marsh didn't really know what she was doing. They have some awkward interactions at a state function. Alleyn also gets to talk to a cat on more than one occasion! Alleyn likes cats and cats like Alleyn. Troy is also around, though she feels slightly off-model here for some reason. I'd expect her to be a little more ambivalent about doing the portrait for a current head of state, posed on a throne no less, however much she likes his face.
This book also contains WHAT MIGHT BE a nod to Doctor Who:
thisbluespirit, or anyone else who might know: might a British retiree have used "play" for "teleplay" for "television show" in 1974? This seems plausible to me, based on no particular evidence.
What I'm Reading Now and Next
I thought I would take a break from murder for a little while, but then I started reading A Guilty Thing Surprised by Ruth Rendell, and it's pretty ok, so the murder break is on hold until I finish it. It's about a wealthy woman who lives a charmed life, OR DOES SHE? Well, not anymore. After so many slow-developing Marsh books, it's a little startling to see a corpse so early in the game. Inspector Wexford is the detective, a portly small-town professional who likes a nice quotation now and then but doesn't let it get in the way of procedure (mostly). His partner Inspector Burden has a great name and is clearly representing my interests in this book: when Wexford nearly sprains his eyes rolling them at a pompous survivor-suspect's "dull and conventional" wife, Burden says that he for one is pleased to meet a nice ordinary person who is doing her best. DAMN STRAIGHT, BURDEN nothing wrong with being ordinary. YOU TELL HIM. I hope she doesn't turn out to be the killer; that would be so disappointing for Inspector Burden and for all of us. :(
Next: maybe nothing for a while? We'll see. But guess what's available for pre-order RIGHT NOW? By the pricking of my thumbs, something comfortable this way comes!
What I've Finished Reading
Tied Up in Tinsel was all right! You can sort of tell who the killer is going to be all along, just by the relative strength of the misdirection, but finding out how it was managed is still enjoyable.
I'm not sure at what point Marsh's setups got to be reliably better than her interrogations, but this is one of those. Troy's detached interest in the eccentric millionaire with a face "like a good-looking camel" and her growing anxiety as tensions in the house come to a boil are a little more engaging than the subsequent interrogation period, with everyone sulking in drawing rooms and Alleyn being imperiously judgmental at various survivor-suspects. Anticipation about how and when The Detective Part will eventually break into and devour the novel we've been reading has become the most common source of suspense in the Alleyn series.
I was a little worried about Black as He's Painted -- it's the one where Alleyn's old school friend becomes president of a newly independent African republic -- and found myself reading it more closely than usual, on the alert for racism. In some ways it was a little better than I expected, and in some ways worse -- I didn't expect or appreciate some of Alleyn's out-of-nowhere musings on "the Negro," for example. On the plus side, there's no obvious nostalgia for the colonial period, even if Marsh does take care to make the worst of the white villains secretly Portuguese instead of British. None of the other African characters have much to do, but President Bartholomew "The Boomer" Opala is as about as complex as any Marsh major-minor character, more than some. Marsh makes all the overt racists grotesque and the "enlightened" whites a little embarrassing, and might suggest that the difference in Alleyn and Opala's political beliefs is some kind of fundamental "racial" difference, but not with too much force. It was ok.
As an Inspector Alleyn book, it's worth reading for its wealth of rare Alleyn personality catalysts. Alleyn gets a childhood, after all this time! -- it's just a couple of memories of conversations with The Boomer over herring toast at Davidson's, but they're friendly and evocative -- and Alleyn's occasionally-mentioned but seldom seen brother shows up! He is a diplomat who is embarrassed that his brother is a "cop;" Alleyn seems to dislike him because he is a stock character left over from the earliest days of the series when Marsh didn't really know what she was doing. They have some awkward interactions at a state function. Alleyn also gets to talk to a cat on more than one occasion! Alleyn likes cats and cats like Alleyn. Troy is also around, though she feels slightly off-model here for some reason. I'd expect her to be a little more ambivalent about doing the portrait for a current head of state, posed on a throne no less, however much she likes his face.
This book also contains WHAT MIGHT BE a nod to Doctor Who:
"I caught myself wondering -- well, almost wondering -- if the whole affair could have been some sort of hallucination. Rather like that dodging-about-in-time nonsense they do in science fiction plays: as if it had happened off the normal temporal plane."
thisbluespirit, or anyone else who might know: might a British retiree have used "play" for "teleplay" for "television show" in 1974? This seems plausible to me, based on no particular evidence. What I'm Reading Now and Next
I thought I would take a break from murder for a little while, but then I started reading A Guilty Thing Surprised by Ruth Rendell, and it's pretty ok, so the murder break is on hold until I finish it. It's about a wealthy woman who lives a charmed life, OR DOES SHE? Well, not anymore. After so many slow-developing Marsh books, it's a little startling to see a corpse so early in the game. Inspector Wexford is the detective, a portly small-town professional who likes a nice quotation now and then but doesn't let it get in the way of procedure (mostly). His partner Inspector Burden has a great name and is clearly representing my interests in this book: when Wexford nearly sprains his eyes rolling them at a pompous survivor-suspect's "dull and conventional" wife, Burden says that he for one is pleased to meet a nice ordinary person who is doing her best. DAMN STRAIGHT, BURDEN nothing wrong with being ordinary. YOU TELL HIM. I hope she doesn't turn out to be the killer; that would be so disappointing for Inspector Burden and for all of us. :(
Next: maybe nothing for a while? We'll see. But guess what's available for pre-order RIGHT NOW? By the pricking of my thumbs, something comfortable this way comes!
