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On the subject of Anthony Berkeley, I just finished Jumping Jenny. I was interested to read a lot of reviews that commented on Berkeley's misogyny in having a female victim who is so completely unmourned by her husband and his friends, to the point that detective Roger Sheringham immediately decides that the murderer has done a public service and should be protected, resulting in his tampering with evidence and inadvertently making himself a suspect. My own impression was that this book was a pretty good depiction of a husband being emotionally abused by his wife, while his entire social circle says "wow, isn't it a shame" and does absolutely nothing to help him (and, honestly, makes it worse by making it clear that they're going to hush everything up and so the wife will never face broad social censure). Well, I guess nobody does anything except the person who snaps and murders her early in the book (not a spoiler, we know the identity of the murderer all along), and also the 100% of the cast of the book who cheerfully commit perjury at Sheringham's inefficient direction in order to mislead the police.
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Apr 8, 2022 02:53
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Is there any good fair play stuff with lesbian detectives? I assume there is but google results pop up more general procedural stuff from what I can tell.
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Apr 17, 2022 05:56
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Snooze Cruise posted:Is there any good fair play stuff with lesbian detectives? I assume there is but google results pop up more general procedural stuff from what I can tell. Nvm, I'm reading the Sarah Caudwell books and using my powers of imagination to imagine Hilary as a lesbian. Also Julia constantly saying and doing homo poo poo despite her straightness is also rather enjoyable for me. These are fun books, I'm on the second now. Snooze Cruise fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Apr 27, 2022 |
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Apr 27, 2022 04:34
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I got Michael Innes' Hamlet, Revenge! from the library. Meh. I guess it was kind of clever, but in a twee, self-satisfied way. The characters are all cardboard masks for the author. Of the several solutions at the end, I had an inkling of the last one, but had no motive for the character, which is fine because the motive was contrived anyway. And there were too many coincidences posing as genuine red herrings. I won't read any more of his stuff. Maybe I'll get more pleasure from Edmund Crispin.
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May 8, 2022 17:30
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Innes really suffers from being marketed as a straight detective writer when he's actually a parodist.
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May 8, 2022 18:24
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Rand Brittain posted:Innes really suffers from being marketed as a straight detective writer when he's actually a parodist. It would help if he wasn't an extremely boring parodist.
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May 8, 2022 19:01
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Everyone's entitled to disliking Innes and other wrong opinions, but is he really a parodist? Most of the time he's only taking up to eleven the self-referential and parodical traits that were very much present in Golden Age mysteries. There is something inherently humorous in contrived crimes foiled by pretentious amateurs who treat the whole thing as a game.
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May 8, 2022 21:19
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Global Disorder posted:Everyone's entitled to disliking Innes and other wrong opinions, but is he really a parodist? Most of the time he's only taking up to eleven the self-referential and parodical traits that were very much present in Golden Age mysteries. There is something inherently humorous in contrived crimes foiled by pretentious amateurs who treat the whole thing as a game. I don't know if parodist is the right word, but this is the guy who wrote a book where all the suspects take a chapter each to explain their theories, all of which are wrong, and then Appleby explains that the gun went off accidentally and neither of the two murders so far were actually committed and nobody has died. I'm not sure if publishing that book with this title and cover gives the reader an accurate idea of what they're buying, and they might be unhappy when they find out.
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May 8, 2022 21:39
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Rand Brittain posted:I don't know if parodist is the right word, but this is the guy who wrote a book where all the suspects take a chapter each to explain their theories, all of which are wrong, and then Appleby explains that the gun went off accidentally and neither of the two murders so far were actually committed and nobody has died. Mist and snow isn't very good, yeah, but that's still a very ordinary Appleby book compared to The Daffodil affair. For those who've never heard of it, just check this blurb from Amazon: quote:Light after light goes out, including two luminaries from Scotland Yard. I liked it very much, but it's hardly a mystery - more akin to a trippy Roger Moore 007 novelization, only with more donnish humor and less shooting. Yet these are exceptions. Innes' usual mysteries seldom mock the genre tropes the way Leo Bruce's A case for three detectives does. His shtick is writing absurd, light-hearted stories that still work as mysteries (or are meant to). Not unlike Phoebe Atwood Taylor, C. H. B. Kitchin or Sarah Caudwell, who was mentioned in a recent post. So, maybe more a screwball mystery writer than a parodist, though one could argue that's a distinction without a difference.
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May 9, 2022 03:06
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"Screwball" might be a good word, although I think it applies better to writers who openly tell jokes. Innes is pretty sparing on jokes except for mild irony and the highbrow banter that all his characters constantly trade back and forth. The parody elements in Innes mostly stem from the intense exaggeration of his plots as compared to the donnish prose and dialogue; take his thrillers for example, which are generally completely serious except that they take so many twists and turns that they almost constitute parody for that reason alone. See also Stop Press, which is only a "parody" in that it's a seven-million-page shaggy dog story (I love it so much). Honestly, the word I like best to describe Innes is "phantasmagoria", which is a pretty good summary of most of his books except for the "biter-bit" crime comedies.
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May 9, 2022 03:22
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Rand Brittain posted:"Screwball" might be a good word, although I think it applies better to writers who openly tell jokes. Innes is pretty sparing on jokes except for mild irony and the highbrow banter that all his characters constantly trade back and forth. Phantasmagoria is a pretty good summary indeed. There is a sense of unreality in Innes, a complete disregard of any "willing suspension of disbelief", that lets the reader join in the fun while always aware such stories only vaguely resemble our world.
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May 9, 2022 04:56
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Visited a new (to me) used bookstore over the weekend and came away with a couple of new (to me) Ellery Queens. I've just finished the first one, The King Is Dead. Interesting read. It's barely a mystery novel. There's a locked-room attempted murder, but it doesn't happen until deep into the book, and Ellery solves it fairly casually. Most of the book is dedicated to setting up the environment -- a munitions millionaire's private island -- and the personalities involved, and it frequently feels intended as a critique of U.S. postwar militarism (it was published in 1952). It's also the only mystery I've ever read that ends with the victim's corpse being incinerated in a nuclear explosion.
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May 17, 2022 20:51
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I'm reading Alex Pavesi. It's intredsjt .
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May 17, 2022 20:58
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I've gotten through another Theodore Terhune mystery, and wow. For books that were legitimately written just after the Second World War, Bruce Graeme managed to perfectly anticipate the harem anime protagonist who manages to be completely oblivious to the fact that multiple women want to jump his bones. He's a nice enough boy, but seriously, they both need to run. And amusingly, one of them already did and married someone else in between books. This is good insofar as Helena was a boring character, but she'd have made a much better wife for Theodore, even though Julia is much more interesting, because she wants so many things out of life that Theodore isn't going to give her because he's completely wrapped up in boring country life. tl;dr Bruce Graeme was good enough at writing women who feel like human beings that I wish them better than the men he writes are likely to give them.
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May 17, 2022 22:33
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3D Megadoodoo posted:I'm reading Alex Pavesi. It's intredsjt . Okay I finished "Eight Detectives" ("The Eighth Detective" in the US for some loving reason) and it was OK. I guess there's a reason I didn't recognize any of the names of the people going "THE BEST CLEVEREST STORY EVER OMG!" on the covers. The plot twist wasn't exactly what I thought it'd be, but it was close enough to disappoint me. Still worth a read for the novellas. (It includes crime stories within the story.)
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May 21, 2022 21:41
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I have to admit that stories that describe themselves as "breaking all the rules", as if the genre was an ancient and sacred canon that nobody has ever profaned with experimentation before, give me a profound headache (see also the latest trailer for The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents).
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May 21, 2022 23:11
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Rand Brittain posted:I have to admit that stories that describe themselves as "breaking all the rules", as if the genre was an ancient and sacred canon that nobody has ever profaned with experimentation before, give me a profound headache (see also the latest trailer for The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents). Is Ugly Sonic in it? (I've read the book, didn't find anything very ground-breaking about it. Didn't know there was going to be moving pictures about it.)
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May 21, 2022 23:38
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Is Ugly Sonic in it? (I've read the book, didn't find anything very ground-breaking about it. Didn't know there was going to be moving pictures about it.) No, and it could still be quite a good movie; it just has a very generic trailer.
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May 22, 2022 00:06
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Reading IQ by Joe Ide. How do you guys like it? On one hand, he has characters using the n-word even though Ide is Asian-American. On the other hand, he’s apparently good enough to be trusted with Phillip Marlowe?
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May 22, 2022 18:48
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The man called M posted:Reading IQ by Joe Ide. How do you guys like it? On one hand, he has characters using the n-word even though Ide is Asian-American. On the other hand, he’s apparently good enough to be trusted with Phillip Marlowe? Marlowe? It's a Holmes/Watson pastiche.
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May 23, 2022 03:51
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gleebster posted:Marlowe? It's a Holmes/Watson pastiche. Sorry, I meant that Ide was entrusted with Marlowe. He wrote a Marlowe story called The Goodbye Coast.
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May 23, 2022 04:13
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Oh, I see. Well, I guess Robert B Parker is still dead
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May 23, 2022 19:51
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gleebster posted:Oh, I see. Well, I guess Robert B Parker is still dead Who did him in 
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May 23, 2022 20:14
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Death on Herons' Mere by Mary Fitt is the latest reprint by Moonstone Press, and it turned out to be really good! In fact all of Moonstone's classic reprints have been excellent.
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May 28, 2022 05:23
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Some reviewers strongly recommended Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone to me, but I have to say that, once again, if I never consume another piece of media that explains that it's "not your typical [genre]", it will still be too soon.
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Jun 22, 2022 17:21
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I recently tried the two books in the Dagobert and Jane Brown series by Delano Ames, as published by Manor Minor Press, and found them really good. Unfortunately, Manor Minor seems to be defunct, which is unfortunate because their cultural footnotes, most of them regarding the many, many kinds of alcohol that Dagobert orders, were extremely helpful and detailed.
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Jul 18, 2022 07:58
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Rand Brittain posted:I recently tried the two books in the Dagobert and Jane Brown series by Delano Ames, as published by Manor Minor Press, and found them really good. Unfortunately, Manor Minor seems to be defunct, which is unfortunate because their cultural footnotes, most of them regarding the many, many kinds of alcohol that Dagobert orders, were extremely helpful and detailed. Saperlipopette! 
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Jul 18, 2022 08:26
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I recently spotted books and audiobooks by Sarah Caudwell showing up as preorders from Random House on the ebook sites and set to come out in 2023, which is a big deal for all the people who haven't read her yet. Not sure if it's going to be the same audiobooks that are now out of print (those were made by Isis). It would be neat to have a male reader that I could put on my digital shelf next to the existing excellent take by Eva Haddon.
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Aug 21, 2022 19:34
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It's now possible to buy Dancing with Death, the fourth of the Lady Lupin books, in physical and ebook again. I'm not sure why they started with the last one, but I hope they finish the series and it doesn't require any familiarity with the books before it. All in all, the Lady Lupin books are an excellent set of comic mysteries, centered on the title character, a ditzy society beauty who marries a country vicar and finds herself a little overwhelmed because she knows absolutely nothing about being a vicar's wife and she's so classy that nobody ever realizes she's completely ignorant. That said, she has a powerful intuition and knowledge of people, and I'm impressed with how she believably matures into a more experienced wife and mother over four books.
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Aug 27, 2022 23:30
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Sounds like poo poo, OP.
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Aug 28, 2022 01:57
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Meanwhile, it looks like the Sarah Caudwell audiobooks coming out next year are "performance copyright 2023", so it looks like it won't be the versions narrated by Eva Haddon. Pity those aren't still available somewhere, but at least I still have my copies.
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Sep 11, 2022 23:21
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Hm, apparently Joyce Carol Oates decided to become the main character of Twitter today by speculating on the reason that people who like fantasy don't like mystery, and the possibility that the two genres are actively antithetical, resulting in approximately ten million people rushing in to say "wut" and name one of the many fantasy and science fiction mysteries that already exist.
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Sep 21, 2022 20:13
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I don't think that's really something that exists
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Sep 21, 2022 20:16
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Best Christmas themed mystery novel?
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Oct 15, 2022 22:11
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I really enjoyed Murder After Christmas by Rupert Latimer, aside from it being completely barking mad. The audiobook is especially good. Also props for Trojan Gold by Elizabeth Peters for its presentation of Christmas in Bavaria. (It reads a bit different since Priam's Treasure has actually turned up again since it was written.)
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Oct 16, 2022 00:00
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Just finished 2022 Edgar for best novel Five Decembers by James Kestrel and it was excellent. The other nominees are next on my list but regardless cannot fault this one for the win. Highly recommended.
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Oct 29, 2022 21:46
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Fate Accomplice posted:Just finished 2022 Edgar for best novel Five Decembers by James Kestrel and it was excellent. The other nominees are next on my list but regardless cannot fault this one for the win. Highly recommended. Well that sounds like a December botm candidate
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Nov 2, 2022 17:19
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Y’all need to read S.A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears immediately. Five Decembers was great but it flat out stole the Edgar from this book.
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Nov 4, 2022 06:11
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So I've been on a massive Brother Cadfael kick again. They are the epitome of comfort reads for me, but I'm thinking I want to try out some other historical mysteries. Preferablly relatively cozy - I'm not a fan of the grimdark blood-and-poo poo variety.
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Nov 21, 2022 23:55
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Fighting Trousers posted:So I've been on a massive Brother Cadfael kick again. They are the epitome of comfort reads for me, but I'm thinking I want to try out some other historical mysteries. Preferablly relatively cozy - I'm not a fan of the grimdark blood-and-poo poo variety. Lindsey Davis's Marcus Didius Falco books are good and there are plenty of them.
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Nov 22, 2022 19:35
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