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Boileau & Narcejac also.
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Apr 22, 2021 16:48
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Maybe they're 50s not 60s. I'm drunk so probate me.
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Apr 22, 2021 16:49
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Global Disorder posted:Any French authors you recommend? The only French crime novels I've read are a few Simenon books from the 50s. He's good, though it often feels like he was making it up as he went along. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Apr 22, 2021 |
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Apr 22, 2021 17:34
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anilEhilated posted:Fred Vargas. She writes rather basic police stories, but the real highlight is the weird and quirky characters. Nothing groundbreaking, but very pleasant reads. I'd suggest starting with either The Chalk Circle Man or The Three Evangelists as the books form a loose series. I've only read one Vargas and it was FORESHADOWING FORESHADOWING FORESHADOWING OH MY GOD THIS PRORAGONIST IS DUMB AS poo poo The End. Maybe it was just a bad example? Neptune's Trident or something like that.
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Apr 22, 2021 17:45
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Nah, that's fair. You definitely don't read them for the mystery. e: Although to be fair, Neptune's Trident isn't a typical example since you know who the killer is from the start. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Apr 23, 2021 |
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Apr 22, 2021 17:50
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A lot of the Fred Vargas novels seem to have supernatural elements that turn out to be cover for something else. In this way, they’re a lot like literary Scooby Doo stories. Last year, I read through all of her books, and I enjoyed all of them except for This Poison Will Remain, mostly because the solution to the mystery was an etymological clue, and the character who would have spotted it immediately at the beginning was sidelined because of a ridiculous and uncharacteristic subplot.
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Apr 30, 2021 13:08
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I finished The Seven Dials Mystery. It was fun, even though it can't be called a fair play mystery; it gleefully violates Knox's rule #8, and pushes the limits of two other rules to boot. Much like The Secret of Chimneys, it's a playful genre mashup. If The Secret of Chimneys was The Prisoner of Zenda vs. Arsene Lupin (despite also being a country house mystery), The Seven Dials Mystery is Bertie Wooster vs. The Thirty-Nine Steps. The PG Wodehouse pastiche is quite well-done, actually. The ending is reminiscent of a certain other well-known early-20th-century novel, but of course saying which would be a major spoiler.
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May 5, 2021 01:33
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Silver2195 posted:I finished The Seven Dials Mystery. It was fun, even though it can't be called a fair play mystery; it gleefully violates Knox's rule #8, and pushes the limits of two other rules to boot. I do appreciate that Agatha Christie was willing to have apparently sympathetic characters be the murderer, which is something a lot of her contemporaries fell down on.
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Jun 21, 2021 06:27
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Reading a Quentin Patrick novel (with a back-cover blurb by Elmer Diktonius which probably says nothing to most people on this planet but it's a bit like grabbing a Robert Ludlum book and seeing that IDK Robert Frost endorses it, time impossibilities notwithstanding) and the detectives' names are Trant and Jervis, and it's bugging the hell out of me because obviously it should be Trent and Jarvis!
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Jun 27, 2021 17:50
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"He was in the army so obviously he wasn't gay." Reading P.D. James's first novel "Cover Her Face" and thought it was from the 1920s because of the style and content but jesus christ it's from 1962. Also the author is a lady. Always thought it was a dude.
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Jun 30, 2021 18:17
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The idea that manliness and homosexuality are mutually incompatible didn't really start to go away until the 90s. There's nothing unusual about James' depiction there for the time it was written. If you want an interesting outsider look at gay culture around 1970 for New York in the context of detective fiction which gives you an interesting mix of empathy and stereotypes, I'd suggest A Jade in Aries, by Donald Westlake (writing as Tucker Coe). One of the early Mike Hammer stories has a good example of this too, minus the empathy part. I've never read any James, though. Do you recommend it?
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Jul 1, 2021 07:54
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Xotl posted:I've never read any James, though. Do you recommend it? It's been at least a couple of decades since I last read any P.D. James so I really don't remember enough to be able to recommend it. (Only started this one, hasn't even been a murder yet.) I do remember watching the Dalgliesh TV series as a kid and liking it but then that's neither here nor there because I think I liked all the British crime series. e: OK now I can safely say: don't read that one at least. It's pretty dire. I'd say more but that would be more effort than James put into it. Read a couple of Q(uentin) Patrick novels too, not terrible. The last one made me feel old because at first I thought "whoa this book is 77 years old!" and then I looked at the front leaf and realized "whoa this book was only 55 years old when I bought it!". At least my "books I bought in the previous century and haven't read yet" -pile is getting thinner. 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Jul 7, 2021 |
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Jul 1, 2021 08:41
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I just finished Ellroy's Underworld USA Trilogy. While there wasn't a mystery component to most of the series (which I missed, having finished the LA Quartet), I really liked how Ellroy introduced the emerald heist in the prologue in the final installment. The entire prologue is just 3 pages but the level of violence and intrigue (as well as the mysterious emeralds that kept appearing throughout the novel) scratched that itch. Ellroy is 3/4's through the Second LA Quartet and I have avoided reading anything about them, however the few stray comments I have read suggests that he has fully embraced his Tarantino reputation and I'm worried that Perfidia, This Storm, and the rest won't be the detective novels I was hoping they would be.
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Jul 10, 2021 11:01
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Professor Shark posted:I just finished Ellroy's Underworld USA Trilogy. While there wasn't a mystery component to most of the series (which I missed, having finished the LA Quartet), I really liked how Ellroy introduced the emerald heist in the prologue in the final installment. The entire prologue is just 3 pages but the level of violence and intrigue (as well as the mysterious emeralds that kept appearing throughout the novel) scratched that itch. Perfidia has a murder mystery as far as I can recall.
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Jul 11, 2021 10:43
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fez_machine posted:Perfidia has a murder mystery as far as I can recall. Great! Weird Request Time: I bought a copy of Ellroy’s LA Noir trilogy off Amazon and it came without a dust jacket. This is a small thing, but drives me nuts. I thought I could, since I’m half decent at it, create a linocut inspired by the trilogy to print on the front. I don’t want to spoil any of the plot for myself (and creating a “blind cover” actually sounds kind of fun tbh), so I was wondering if anyone who has read the Hopkins Trilogy could identify some imagery that I could incorporate into a custom cover. Any ideas??
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Aug 5, 2021 02:35
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I mean.... is there any reason why you can't do that after having read it?
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Aug 5, 2021 08:06
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I have summers off and have down time now, but probably won’t when the school year starts. It takes me forever to read novels because most of my time is spent with essays and short stories haha Edit: I guess it makes more sense to just look at a couple of the original book covers and work from there Professor Shark fucked around with this message at 09:49 on Aug 5, 2021 |
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Aug 5, 2021 08:56
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I have a question about Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. How did Pierot figure out that Flora Ackroyd didn’t actually see Roger that night but instead took the money? He did the experiment with Parker where they re-enacted Parker seeing her at the door to the study and careful note was about the two glasses Parker had. But I don’t see how that helped Pierot figure out Flora was lying. Though I do imagine from other clues he had already figured out Pierot was killed earlier than a quarter to 10
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Aug 12, 2021 22:07
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theblackw0lf posted:I have a question about Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Poirot, not Pierot. He's not a clown!
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Aug 12, 2021 22:11
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Silver2195 posted:Poirot, not Pierot. He's not a clown! Yes he is.
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Aug 12, 2021 22:15
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Silver2195 posted:Poirot, not Pierot. He's not a clown! Ah my mistake, not sure why I kept seeing it that way. Also I have mixed feelings about who the murderer was. Yes there were clues that pointed to it so it’s not totally out of the blue, but still feels a bit of a cheat. Also doesn’t the revelation of the murderer violate Knox’s rules? Especially rule 1. theblackw0lf fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 22:33
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theblackw0lf posted:Ah my mistake, not sure why I kept seeing it that way. Why would Christie have given a hoot about some rules some dude wrote? E: lmao especially three years prior to them being written.
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Aug 12, 2021 22:43
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure Knox wrote his rules in response to Ackroyd, among other things. He wasn't just some guy; they were both founding members of the Detection Club.
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Aug 12, 2021 23:02
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Rand Brittain posted:Yeah, I'm pretty sure Knox wrote his rules in response to Ackroyd, among other things. Yes he is a member of the Detection Club known literally only for his dumb rules and not for his crime fiction (or - to the general public - not known at all), while Agatha Christie is a member of the Detection Club known for being the most successful crime fiction writer in the history of the cosmos.
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Aug 12, 2021 23:14
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Rand Brittain posted:Yeah, I'm pretty sure Knox wrote his rules in response to Ackroyd, among other things. Also, Knox's rules, in their expanded form, seem specifically intended to say that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is fine: http://gadetection.pbworks.com/w/page/7931441/Ronald%20Knox%27s%20Ten%20Commandments%20for%20Detective%20Fiction "The second half of the rule is more difficult to state precisely, especially in view of some remarkable performances by Mrs. Christie. It would be more exact to say that the author must not imply an attitude of mystification in the character who turns out to be the criminal." In the context of the essay, Knox's rules are a lot more sensible and less dogmatic than the short form makes them look. (As opposed to the alternative rulesets of people like Van Dine, which are full of rigid and arbitrary rules that few good writers actually adhere to.) Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 23:14
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Seriously, Van Dine has 7 rules that are actually valid, but are mostly the same 2 or 3 rules restated in various ways (1, 5, 6, 8, 10, 14, 15). The other 13 are all crap. Rule 2, if read charitably, is just a restatement of Rule 1. But if taken literally, it's absurd. It would ban the standard trope of the suspect who is innocent of the crime but is lying to protect another suspect, for example. Rule 3 is a really a subset of Rule 16. Both are routinely violated by even the "purest" mystery authors; plenty of Christie mysteries have romantic subplots, for example. Rule 4 is Knox's 7th, but in a stronger form - not only can the detective not be the murderer, but it can't be one of the cops, etc. involved in the investigation either. I am aware of at least one Ellery Queen mystery that breaks this rule, and while it caught me by surprise, I have to admit that it was a legitimate solution. One of the Father Brown stories also breaks it. I guess you can argue that it's a "cheat" because it's too easy for a cop investigating the crime to falsify evidence. That would fit with the reasoning of Rule 13. Rule 11 is just classism.
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Aug 12, 2021 23:56
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The best thing you can say for van dine's rules it led to a cool umineko character.
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Aug 12, 2021 23:58
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Silver2195 posted:It would ban the standard trope of the suspect who is innocent of the crime but is lying to protect another suspect, for example. Maybe because that's literally the most boring poo poo imaginable as used in hundreds of crime novels up until I'd like to say the 1970s? (I'm not saying it can't be used in a non-poo poo way, but that in about 100% of stories it was used in, it's groan-worthy.) e: The only rule you actually need is "be a good writer".
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Aug 13, 2021 00:04
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Maybe because that's literally the most boring poo poo imaginable as used in hundreds of crime novels up until I'd like to say the 1970s? (I'm not saying it can't be used in a non-poo poo way, but that in about 100% of stories it was used in, it's groan-worthy.) I can think of two separate Agatha Christie mysteries that used it well, including one in which the murderer was actually a fairly dull-witted person, and the baffling aspects of the crime were the result of other characters, including the victim in a way, covering it up after the fact.
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Aug 13, 2021 00:09
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If I had to phrase it, I would probably put the rule as "the dividing line between the cast of suspects and the cast of detectives should be clear." Having the cop be the murderer worked once or twice, but more frequently it's frustrating when the murderer is someone you'd forgotten was even a character, like in that one Ellery Queen. Ultimately the reader can't know everything and has to take some data and judgment calls on faith from the author, and when the author plays with this incautiously it damages the credibility of the whole edifice. I've never forgiven Dickson Carr for the multiple occasions on which his detective has pronounced someone completely trustworthy and then later reveal that he was lying to deceive the "trustworthy" fellow, who was actually the killer.
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Aug 13, 2021 02:05
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Been reading a lot of Rurh Rendell lately and realized the piece-of-poo poo copper is called Burden because he's a burden.
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Aug 17, 2021 22:52
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We weren't able to read The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy for the read-along thread because it mysteriously vanished from American ebook sites, but it's back now for those who want to give it a try with new covers. It's a pretty decent read if you want a classic country-house mystery just slightly shading towards parody!
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Sep 1, 2021 05:02
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I picked up The Stranger Diaries, by Elly Griffiths, after reading a recommendation of it on a blog I follow. I was really impressed with the writing and the characterization, and the use of three different perspectives, occasionally revisiting the same scene from the point of view of the interviewee and the police officer. Unfortunately, I thought the ending was pretty disappointing. Like, I was completely baffled because nobody in the book really seemed to fit the mental profile of a killer who's obsessed with this English teacher and with Victorian literature and has carried out a number of murders based on a short story she's writing a book about the author of, and leaves cryptic little notes referencing that story on every corpse. But in the end it turned out that it was, in fact, a person who by all accounts did not have that kind of mind, but did all those things anyway. I'd considered him as a suspect, but ultimately tossed him out with the rest because there was just no reason to believe he was deranged or obsessed with the English teacher. But, apparently, he was!
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Sep 11, 2021 05:24
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I wonder if she's related to Ella Griffiths.
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Sep 11, 2021 05:54
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Finished Rendell's Wexford novel A Sleeping Life. I thought it was super obvious by about half-way in that the plot twist was: the victim was the dude, and they were probably killed because they were the dude. Maybe it's because I've lived in newer times, but I can't help but think Rendell really underestimated the reader.
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Sep 15, 2021 23:12
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Just re-read Lord Edgeware Dies and Christie certainly liked to say that Jewish people are a) greedy and b) have big noses, for no reason whatsoever. e: I mean the reason was she hated Jewish people, but there is no reason in the story itself to make any comments on Jewish people. 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Sep 21, 2021 |
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Sep 21, 2021 03:13
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Just re-read Lord Edgeware Dies and Christie certainly liked to say that Jewish people are a) greedy and b) have big noses, for no reason whatsoever. Yeah, Christie displays some clearly antisemitic attitudes in her earlier books. There’s some odd nuances to this - despite Poirot’s remark about “love of money,” the Jewish actress in Lord Edgeware Dies ends up being the most sympathetic character in the book. But she consistently takes it for granted that Jews are greedier than other people. The antisemitic remarks stop in the books written after 1933 or so, when I guess the rise of Nazism made casual antisemitism in the UK less socially acceptable.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:16
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Yup, we're working through watching all the David Suchet Poirot tv shows and they basically go in approximate publication order so there are some real doozies, especially in the earlier ones. It's also really interesting how often "Secret mother posing as servant to adopted child" comes up as a plot point in different stories.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:27
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yup, we're working through watching all the David Suchet Poirot tv shows and they basically go in approximate publication order so there are some real doozies, especially in the earlier ones. It's also really interesting how often "Secret mother posing as servant to adopted child" comes up as a plot point in different stories. I don’t remember any Christie books with that plot, although I admit I haven’t read them all. Though I do remember it happening in an Ellery Queen. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Sep 21, 2021 |
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Sep 21, 2021 13:41
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Silver2195 posted:I don’t remember any Christie books with that plot, although I admit I haven’t read them all. Though I do remember it happening in an Ellery Queen. https://agathachristie.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Man%27s_Mirror https://agathachristie.fandom.com/wiki/The_Case_of_the_Missing_Will_(Agatha_Christie%27s_Poirot_episode) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercule_Poirot%27s_Christmas Apparently one of those was largely rewritten for television though.
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Sep 21, 2021 20:30
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