Mysteries: Cosy, Cats, Capers, Historical, Medical, Procedural and everything in between

[lady narcissa]

19 hours ago, Ormond said:

By the way, do you know about the Cozy Mystery List site? It has a listing by themes, which includes "holiday" mysteries.

https://www.cozy-mystery.com/

https://www.cozy-mystery.com/cozy-mysteries-by-themes.html

I did not know about that site, thank you!  Who knew there were so many St. Patrick's Day mysteries!?!

[Iskaral Pust]

On 6/19/2019 at 7:07 PM, lady narcissa said:

I did not know about that site, thank you!  Who knew there were so many St. Patrick's Day mysteries!?!

If you’re a fan of cosy mysteries, Amazon seems to offer a lot of them heavily discounted for Kindle.  They show up most days in my daily email of Kindle special offers.

[lady narcissa]

7 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

If you’re a fan of cosy mysteries, Amazon seems to offer a lot of them heavily discounted for Kindle.  They show up most days in my daily email of Kindle special offers.

Thanks, I think I am generally not a fan of cosy mysteries.  I find the quality of a lot of them is low - at least the ones I've tried.  I seem to be able to lower my quality bar when it comes to holiday based ones as the embellishments of the holiday outweigh the lower quality of the story.  That said I'd certainly read a non-holiday one if people had specific recommendations of good ones.

I generally do pretty well at amazon with mysteries.  I add books I want to my wishlist and then just check them every day until one day they go on offer and I have had good success.  The bizarre exception to this is the Duncan Kincaid/ Gemma James series by Deborah Crombie.  After getting the first one for $1.99 the second one has never strayed from its $7.99 price - I've been watching it for 4 years now!  It the stubborn holdout on my wishlist.

[Zorral]

Two of Anne Cleeves's Vera Stanhope novels this month!

Hidden Depths (2004 in the UK - 2007 in the US) Third in the Vera Stanhope series.

This is an early Vera, third of eight (so far The Seagull is the latest (2017). What strikes me most when reading a Vera Stanhope, are how the television characterization, superbly delivered by Brenda Blethyn, contrasts with the author's delivery in the books.  This is probably all the more so for me since I first encountered Vera Stanhope (and Ann Cleeves) via the ITV series. Book Vera is less comfortable with herself than tv Vera -- she's also somewhat meaner, at least to her underlings, and more aware of it, but cares less.  She also has regrets which aren't visible in tv Vera.  However, every satisfaction one receives from television Vera are present in the books, even when the plots are cut-up, rearranged, more than one book are merged into a series, and even given different endings.  The presence and awareness of England's north are more visible in the books -- birding comes up in every book.  In Hidden Depths, birding is front and center, but not the way one might expect.

The Glass Room. (2012) Fifth in the Vera Stanhope series.

A Vera Stanhope novel not previously published in the US, though later ones, such as The Moth Catcher (2015), have been. Cleeves's self-conscious attempt at an Agatha Christie enclosed, ensemble mystery, with a victim that the reader is safely emotionally non-involved. It is located primarily at an isolated writer's retreat, during a workshop on the crime novel, with characters ranging from students hoping to get published, to literature academics, professionals from the police and publishing industry, and successful writers. This should be too meta twee, perhaps, to work, but Ann Cleeves is supurb at what she does -- and her earlier career included cosies. Until the final act, I was submerged entirely, but, alas, the end does not hold up to all the set-up, the background of the characters. The villain barely registers, before the end, or at the reveal.  One goes, “What? Who? Who is that?” Thus it is an unsatisfactory end.  But I enjoyed the journey all the way until then, and didn't care about the primary victim anyway -- see: Agatha Christie.  

[lady narcissa]

On 6/21/2019 at 1:22 PM, Zorral said:

Until the final act, I was submerged entirely, but, alas, the end does not hold up to all the set-up, the background of the characters. The villain barely registers, before the end, or at the reveal.  One goes, “What? Who? Who is that?” Thus it is an unsatisfactory end.

This was exactly the experience I had reading her Thin Air Shetland book.  Fantastic read, great visiting characters, wonderful sense of place, and good murder victims...until you got to the end and then it all fell apart for me.  But since the other 98% of the book was so enjoyable I guess it gets a pass.

I haven't seen any of the tv series based on her books.  I would like to see them someday but I think I'd rather finish the two series before watching any of them.  I've seen the actress who plays Vera in other things and I have a hard time wrapping my head around her as Vera.  She seems much cuddlier than bookVera.

I see that Cleeves has a new series with a new detective in a new location coming out later this year.  Looking forward to that.

[Zorral]

11 hours ago, lady narcissa said:

I've seen the actress who plays Vera in other things and I have a hard time wrapping my head around her as Vera.  She seems much cuddlier than bookVera.

TV Vera is all together generally a kinder and wiser person, and far more secure about herself.  What remains though from Book Vera is her general hardassing and blocking of the new, young, female colleagues, particularly if they are ambitious.  But TV Vera Learns from her wrong-headedness, unlike Book Vera.

So this will be Cleeves fourth crime series, meaning the new one?  Have you a link to more details?

[lady narcissa]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

So this will be Cleeves fourth crime series, meaning the new one?  Have you a link to more details?

It came up as a recommendation for me on amazon.  It's coming out in September.  Looks like we are heading down to Devon.  I think its interesting she doesn't stay locked into the same detective.  Another similarity of hers with Christie, I guess.  I think its smart.  Its all too easy to just keep churning out the same series but then you run the risk of getting a bit too formulaic and stale.  This way she can always go back to a detective if she gets a new idea for them but can keep them on the shelf if not.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1509889566/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_4?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

 

[Zorral]

13 minutes ago, lady narcissa said:

It came up as a recommendation for me on amazon.  It's coming out in September.  Looks like we are heading down to Devon.  I think its interesting she doesn't stay locked into the same detective.  Another similarity of hers with Christie, I guess.  I think its smart.  Its all too easy to just keep churning out the same series but then you run the risk of getting a bit too formulaic and stale.  This way she can always go back to a detective if she gets a new idea for them but can keep them on the shelf if not.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1509889566/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_4?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

 

Thank you!

[lady narcissa]

Speaking of Ann Cleeve's Shetland series, the 7th one, Cold Earth is a Kindle deal today for $2.99.

https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Earth-Shetland-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B01LXQR9US/ref=sr_1_6?crid=3A5NZPYVAGIN5&keywords=ann+cleeves+shetland+series&qid=1561923196&s=gateway&smid=AYA46IZIY6C51&sprefix=ann+clee%2Caps%2C154&sr=8-6

[lady narcissa]

And another deal!  Not sure if anyone is interested in the Kindle deals of the mysteries that have been recommended here but today the first Donna Leon is on sale for $1.99.  I'm picking this one up so I can finally start this series!  (I think I have a paper copy but the font is so small!)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007SIV41G/ref=s9_acsd_hps_bw_c_x_4_w?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-2&pf_rd_r=K8MD3BZ9W4SYK0KKVAAN&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=efbd074c-33ab-4b82-9b90-7265f897ce5d&pf_rd_i=11552285011

 

[lady narcissa]

Has anyone read the Jack Taylor series by Ken Bruen?  I'm going to Galway for the first time next month and understand the series takes place there and thought it might be interesting to read a few.  Otherwise if anyone has any recommendations for Galway or Dublin based mysteries, please suggest away!

[Inkdaub]

I finally read Garnethill by Denise Mina.  It's set in Glasgow and mixes a deceptively light tone with some pretty dark subject matter.  This is not a procedural and the 'detective' is an amateur directly involved with the crimes.  Garnethill is Mina's first book and it shows in places, but I liked it and will read more of her work soon enough. 

 

[Deedles]

Have started “whose body’” by Dorothy Sayers. Enjoying it but not loving it. Good enough to get the next though.

 

[Jo498]

It's been more than 10 years (I think I that I read most of Sayers in 2007) so I do not recall details but the first one definitely is not one of the best. As far as I remember already the second one (Unpleasantness at Bellona Club) is considerably better and also more interestingly connected to the time period and Lord Peters "backstory".

Overall I think the series is worth the perseverance although I do find some of the later ones overambitious (Sayers is very erudite and intelligent, prepare for some Latin quotes as well as gory details of code breaking and permutation bell ringing) and/or simply too long they all also give a very interesting picture of 1920s-30s Britain and one should also read them in order.

A few weeks ago I re-read 4 or 5 of Sjöwall/Wahlöö's 60s/70s Martin Beck series. As someone wrote elsewhere, "The laughing policeman" is probably the best of the lot. They are not bad (otherwise I'd have stopped earlier) but rather dated and I am not sure they are really good enough to count as "classics". They were quite novel in their time, focussing on the drudgery of the police work and also agressively (sometimes annoyingly) putting societal/social problems in the center of some cases.

[A wilding]

Personally I don't enjoy Dorothy L Sayers because for me Lord Peter Wimsey comes across as a bit of a Gary Stu. He is a massively wealthy aristocrat who is good at everything, effortlessly superior, and has no flaws, apart from some trivial ones designed to make him even more attractive to the reader (such as being a little squeamish after his actions have sent someone to the gallows.)

For example, a medium size spoiler for Murder Must Advertise:

Spoiler

Wimsey is investigating undercover and has to play in an amateur cricket match. He intends to be discreet, but then when batting gets hit in the body by a delivery and loses it. It naturally turns out that while at Balliol (of course) he was one of the finest batsman ever to play for Oxford University. He starts clobbering the bowling to all corners of the field and is consequently recognised by someone who had seen him bat at Lords at the Varsity match. (In those days of course gentlemen batted, players bowled.)

 

[Jo498]

He is a bit of Gary Stu, no doubt about it.

I think there are two main reasons for this. One was jokingly granted by Sayers that when she was too poor to afford bus fare she gave Wimsey a 12 cylinder luxury car etc.. The other are probably characters like Sherlock Holmes, Raffles (gentleman cricketeer and master burglar) and other figures of late Victorian/Edwardian mystery fiction or pulp. Conan, Tarzan and John Carter of Mars are also Gary Stues.

Sure, one could argue that the overall context of Sayers' novels is too realistic and they are to literary and ambitious for pulp so Wimsey certainly does stick out more than Conan.

[A wilding]

9 hours ago, Jo498 said:

Sure, one could argue that the overall context of Sayers' novels is too realistic and they are to literary and ambitious for pulp so Wimsey certainly does stick out more than Conan

I would agree with that.

Though I disagree about Sherlock Holmes being a Gary Stu. Holmes undoubtedly has an extraordinary talent, enhanced by him dedicating his life to nurturing and developing it, but in many other ways he is a deeply flawed human being. (And we discover in The Missing Three-Quarter that he has little knowledge of sport and absolutely no interest in it.)

I also found that the realism and literary intent made it grate when Wimsey hounds suspects from his position of superiority and privilege. My sympathies were often with the suspect, which was certainly not Sayers intention!

[Jo498]

I believe that Sayers thought she gave Wimsey some flaws. He is suffering the post traumatic stress (shell shock), he is actually not well liked by several members of his noble family, he is supposedly not "serious" enough about life (one model was Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster). And he is aware of his privilege at least to some extent and his relationship to his good friend (the lower middle class police inspector who later marries Wimsey's sister, IIRC) suffers from this class tensions and Wimsey is aware that there is only so much he can do about it.

Anyway, I think the Wimsey series is worth it and deserved regarded as a classic despite some flaws.

[Zorral]

On 7/27/2019 at 4:13 PM, A wilding said:

Personally I don't enjoy Dorothy L Sayers because for me Lord Peter Wimsey comes across as a bit of a Gary Stu. He is a massively wealthy aristocrat who is good at everything, effortlessly superior, and has no flaws, apart from some trivial ones designed to make him even more attractive to the reader (such as being a little squeamish after his actions have sent someone to the gallows.)

For example, a medium size spoiler for Murder Must Advertise:

  Reveal hidden contents

Wimsey is investigating undercover and has to play in an amateur cricket match. He intends to be discreet, but then when batting gets hit in the body by a delivery and loses it. It naturally turns out that while at Balliol (of course) he was one of the finest batsman ever to play for Oxford University. He starts clobbering the bowling to all corners of the field and is consequently recognised by someone who had seen him bat at Lords at the Varsity match. (In those days of course gentlemen batted, players bowled.)

 

That's how Tasha Alexander's Lady Emily and her noble friends are too.  And woo, do they consciously revel in their privilege of titles and money, employing their power at all times, always, though, you know, only for good.  Feh.

I confess though, to enjoying the television episodes of Wimsy, though I never warmed to the character who was Harriet Vane.

I liked the Campion series of another titled wealthy playboy determined to play private detective rather more though.  He and his friends possessed a charming sillyness. 

 

Edited July 29, 2019 by Zorral

[Jo498]

Actually, the example in the spoiler is not very good for the point that class privileges are helping Wimsey, because it rather shows a disadvantage for Wimsey because is cover is blown.

It is a point for him being annoyingly brilliant at everything he touches, though.