Close Enough for Murder Monday
Jun. 26th, 2016 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bArchived from Livejournal
I'm a little dazed, but pretty sure it's Monday, or close enough! Response to comments may be sporadic, but eventually I'll get to it (if any appear)
What I've Finished Reading
In A Guilty Thing Surprised, shocking secrets were revealed! Mike Burden can feel a little better about the relative unnaturalness of his family (or not). This book went by very fast. I haven't been sucked into Ruth Rendell quicksand, but I'll be keeping my eyes open for other books in the series.
I do want to note that this edition has an appalling density of typos. Rendell is a good, lucid writer, but whoever is in charge of paperback mysteries at Ballantine couldn't be bothered. There's an "of" for "if" or a "than" for "then" on practically every page. One of Wexford's pointed quotations (intended as a turning point in the investigation) is confused by someone in the print room slapping a period at the end of a line that never asked for one. This made me sad.
What I Gave Up On for Seemingly Petty Reasons
I'd been eyeing The Jewel that Was Ours by Colin Dexter for a while, ever since it showed up at the bookstore. I kept passing it on the shelf and thinking, "That's a nice pretentious title." By "pretentious" here I meant something more like "melodic." There's a Historical British Cities Bus Tour for querulous American retirees, and one of them dies of a heart attack, how unfortunate and mundane! But wait. . . what if it was actually MURDER? This is not a bad premise at all, and who doesn't love American tourists who keep yelling at Historical British Cities for having too much rain and modern architecture? Maybe this wearily sardonic bus driver character doesn't love them, but I do.
Unfortunately, I had to stop reading before I even had the chance to meet the detective, not because of anything in the writing (it was just ok) but because the book as a physical object was so badly put together that reading it was a chore. The font and margins were a little more awkward than normal and every chapter epigraph, note, sign, or letter text had to be set apart from the main text in a BOX, for some reason -- but the real problem was that the entire book had been bound too far into the page, so that it was impossible to open all the way. I felt bad for Colin Dexter, who probably went to a lot of trouble to write a book only to have it served up so uninvitingly by the publishers (Ballantine Books again), but not bad enough to power through. Maybe next time.
What I'm Reading Now
The Red House Mystery, A. A. Milne's stab at writing the perfect mystery novel. A man's long-lost brother appears, only to fetch up shot to death in a locked study, like you do. There are naturally a lot of guests staying over, bantering over breakfast and playing plenty of golf. An Amiable Amateur wanders onto the scene to visit one of the guests and, having a guaranteed income and nothing better to do, decides to play detective. Like you do. Everyone is a bit blase about the fact that a man has been killed and their friend and host (irritating as he may be sometimes) is a possible murderer, and there is a great deal of easy genre-savvy chatter about who gets to be the Watson. It's ok so far!
This one comes with a blurb from Alexander Wollcott declaring it to be "one of the three best mystery stories of all time." What are the other two? I haven't been able to find out. Mystery fans of my friends list, what would you pick?
What I Plan to Read Next
I brought The Ampersand Papers with me because it was tiny, so maybe that?
I'm a little dazed, but pretty sure it's Monday, or close enough! Response to comments may be sporadic, but eventually I'll get to it (if any appear)
What I've Finished Reading
In A Guilty Thing Surprised, shocking secrets were revealed! Mike Burden can feel a little better about the relative unnaturalness of his family (or not). This book went by very fast. I haven't been sucked into Ruth Rendell quicksand, but I'll be keeping my eyes open for other books in the series.
I do want to note that this edition has an appalling density of typos. Rendell is a good, lucid writer, but whoever is in charge of paperback mysteries at Ballantine couldn't be bothered. There's an "of" for "if" or a "than" for "then" on practically every page. One of Wexford's pointed quotations (intended as a turning point in the investigation) is confused by someone in the print room slapping a period at the end of a line that never asked for one. This made me sad.
What I Gave Up On for Seemingly Petty Reasons
I'd been eyeing The Jewel that Was Ours by Colin Dexter for a while, ever since it showed up at the bookstore. I kept passing it on the shelf and thinking, "That's a nice pretentious title." By "pretentious" here I meant something more like "melodic." There's a Historical British Cities Bus Tour for querulous American retirees, and one of them dies of a heart attack, how unfortunate and mundane! But wait. . . what if it was actually MURDER? This is not a bad premise at all, and who doesn't love American tourists who keep yelling at Historical British Cities for having too much rain and modern architecture? Maybe this wearily sardonic bus driver character doesn't love them, but I do.
Unfortunately, I had to stop reading before I even had the chance to meet the detective, not because of anything in the writing (it was just ok) but because the book as a physical object was so badly put together that reading it was a chore. The font and margins were a little more awkward than normal and every chapter epigraph, note, sign, or letter text had to be set apart from the main text in a BOX, for some reason -- but the real problem was that the entire book had been bound too far into the page, so that it was impossible to open all the way. I felt bad for Colin Dexter, who probably went to a lot of trouble to write a book only to have it served up so uninvitingly by the publishers (Ballantine Books again), but not bad enough to power through. Maybe next time.
What I'm Reading Now
The Red House Mystery, A. A. Milne's stab at writing the perfect mystery novel. A man's long-lost brother appears, only to fetch up shot to death in a locked study, like you do. There are naturally a lot of guests staying over, bantering over breakfast and playing plenty of golf. An Amiable Amateur wanders onto the scene to visit one of the guests and, having a guaranteed income and nothing better to do, decides to play detective. Like you do. Everyone is a bit blase about the fact that a man has been killed and their friend and host (irritating as he may be sometimes) is a possible murderer, and there is a great deal of easy genre-savvy chatter about who gets to be the Watson. It's ok so far!
This one comes with a blurb from Alexander Wollcott declaring it to be "one of the three best mystery stories of all time." What are the other two? I haven't been able to find out. Mystery fans of my friends list, what would you pick?
What I Plan to Read Next
I brought The Ampersand Papers with me because it was tiny, so maybe that?
