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


lady narcissa
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I got the first of Walker's "Bruno, Chief of Police" series from the library and I have to say that this is probably the worst book I read through in a long time. I found it so bad that I returned the second book of the series  unread. The whodunnit is trivial (and the only twist quite predictable), there is lots of infodump on French history and also a strange endorsement of French nationalism, including Anti-EU polemic in a book by a Brit. I am as anti-EU (in its current form, I'd have nothing against the early 80s common market) as it gets but I don't find it funny that the locals in the book call EU inspectors who want to fine them for selling home-slaughtered meat or whatever kind of cheeses and spirits they are not allowed to sell because of EU rules "Gestapo" (and Bruno is of course helping them evading such controls). It's about one third about cooking and fine dining, one third fluff (with a cheesy, creepy romance thrown in), one third mediocre crime mystery.

Then I started the famous Inspector Morse series because I had watched the "Endeavour" prequel series and quite liked them. Now both the 80s/90s Morse TV series and the books are rather different from each other and the prequel, , not the least in the character of Morse, but all seem pretty good (I have since watched a handful of the 80s Morse TV episodes). Of the 13 novels (1975-99) I have now read 1,2,6,7,13. I found them highly entertaining and well worth the time although some are definitely bit implausible or far flung in some details. The Morse of the books is a fairly unpleasant character, proud of himself, curt or condescending to co-workers or anyone else, a creepy/dirty middle aged (later old) man, (at least borderline) alcoholic. Brilliant, but frequently brilliantly wrong, in fact it seems a standard "gag" of the books that Morse is several times during the narrative completely convinced of a rather far flung solution that turns out to be completely wrong.

The TV Morse can still be curt but he is purged of most of his negative habits. I think the TV Lewis (assistant) has been made more interesting, younger, certainly a more interesting contrast to Morse (in the books they are fairly close in age although very different in habits and personality). The prequel Endeavour is by far the nicest guy who sometimes comes across as impolite because of his slightly aspergy focus on a case.

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I appreciated the Bruno books immensely. I am nearly finished with the most recent one, #15, The Shooting at Chateau Rock.

They've been the purrfect escape fiction -- into France! with so much wine! -- during These Times.  There are certainly flaws, but I don't read these books for the crime or who did it.  I read them for many other reasons -- including the giggles at Walker's attempt to write a cinematic scene right out of Jason Bourne franchise, which, OOOOOOOOOO Plueeeze, in the third one -- none of the others are that ridiculous though, thank goodness.  I also get a kick at how skillfully Martin pulls off doing it by the numbers of other very successful detective series written by USians set in a European country.  The seams show, but in these books, I don't mind, they are part of the entertainment quotient.

The scenes with the French Bassets, Gigi and Balzac, the embedded history from so many eras, past and currently, all of which in this beautifully rendered location that has hosted them during the history of homo sap -- these are satisfying plunges out of surrounding reality.

Beyond that, there is an ensemble of women that grows as the books continue of terrific women, accomplished, strong, varied class and background and nationality.  They all have lives of their own, ambitions of their own, and they all DO NOT wish to sleep or partner with Bruno.  He appreciates them all for who they are, even when sleeping with two - three of them (15 books recall!! he's an eligible batchaler) even as they won't marry him, settle down and raise his dream family).  Works for me and an ongoing series -- with dogs, horse, wine, food, glorious scenery, great history that includes Vietnam and Algeria, as well as Napoleon and Cro-Magnans and Neanderthals, Vichy and De Gaul, Mitterand, and so on.  But then, I also love France, particularly Southern France -- even though such a hapless américain.  Which illustrates again my theory that the mystery-crime-policier is the universal fictional solvant -- able to take every genre and literary form and make it work within those perimeters to some degree or other.

Whereas Morse is so wet, whether young prequel Morse or later Morse. He is not interesting -- to me.  Others though love him.  Which is why we need as many writers as we can get!

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

All the Devils are Here by Louise Penny. I was initially bummed that it takes place in Paris but that soon disappeared. I felt it was one of my favorites in the series until I got to the final few chapters that were a little chaotic and silly. Overall good to very good.

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Have received the very last published volume in Martin Walker's Bruno Chief of Police series, published in May (2020), #18, The Shooting at Château Rock. Chief Bruno and the somewhat fluctuating cast of St. Denis and the Périgord region have been an ongoing part of my life since the last week or so of June.  There's no gift more desirable to reader, than the discovery of a multi-volume series in which all the titles have already been published.

I wonder if there will be any more. I could see him successfully creating more titles in the series set in the covid-19 era. He could do it plausibly. This might not be the case for every series going by any means, particularly one of as many titles and repeating, established characters and relationships. This series though, I could see the virus catastrophe contributing to plots, relationships, crimes, history.  It’s not as if Europe, France and this region of France haven’t suffered dreadfully in pandemics in the past.

Bruno's Balzac, his second basset, at two years is ready for his stud duty.  This is ... I dunno. Something only Martin Walker would have thought of? Particularly as it seems French Basset males can need some human help in doing it, particularly the first time. (Which to my mind never bodes well for the endurance of a breed of anything when it needs humans to have sex.)

This is a French fairyland world, in which a community contains traditional ways practiced for centuries, where all its vastly long history exists on top, around and through the present, where bad things happen -- almost always coming from elsewhere, wouldn't you know -- and carefully cared for and nourished by its officialdom top down, from mayor and wealthy residents, to, above all, its Chief of Police.

I like so much that the EU is a constant reference in the book. Its rules, regulations, trade agreements. and evidently its power, at least as regarded by the residents of a rural community, is in the way of them making a living.  The region is always in flux too, due to the floods of outsiders, whether summer residents from England, tourists from the entire world. From this flood emerge an endless procession of bad guys, whether as legacy from France's colonial evils, its Nazi occupation, or new ones that have blossomed on their own, such as the Russian oligarchs. There's always a purely local connection that brings them to Bruno's St. Denis.

It may not be the best writing or even the best series, perhaps? but it was reliably engaging, and unpredictably quirky through out. The quirks are what makes its formula feel awake, not tired.  Original, yet formulaic enough, that it could trace pathways within the pandemic as it was / is happening in France, to deepen the community's relationships, official and personal, and provide new interests and development in the characters.  That's quite a lot -- the author should be pleased and proud.


 

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The 5th Cormoran Strike novel by Galbraith/Rowling will be available on Amazon US next week.

I’m undecided about this one.  The last installment wasn’t great and the predictable (forced) romance arc is tedious.  But I did enjoy the way the story follows Strike’s daily routine and thought process so closely. 

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My sister gets all the Cormoran Strikes, so I will read them eventually, None of them was really good, but not a complete waste of time either. They were all way too long and the last one? (Lethal white) the worst in many respects; the forced romance is only one of these aspects. I think I found the core "secret" of the last one also fairly anticlimactic when it was revealed.

I read another of Fred Vargas I had missed so far (I think it is the second one of the Adamsberg series, L'homme à l'envers) which was quite good. I probably shouldn't judge the Bruno series after the first book, but Vargas is really a completely different quality (and she is French, not sounding like a beguiled tourist or marketing writer for regional tourism). Sure, she is also quirky (sometimes apparently for quirkiness sake) and in some of the later books it get very artificial. I stopped reading them  for a year or so after Sous les vents de Neptune (Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand) because this was so absurdly and implausibly over the top but it was worth returning to them, despite the later ones Temps glaciaires (Climate of Fear)  also being absurdly over the top. Nevertheless, I'd recommend the three without Adamsberg and the first three with Adamsberg almost without qualification.

I also started Rankin's Rebus series with the first three books. That's not quite on such an exalted level but also readable and the glimpse into 80s/90s Scotland/Britain sometimes interesting independently of the mystery.

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5 hours ago, Jo498 said:

I also started Rankin's Rebus series with the first three books. That's not quite on such an exalted level but also readable and the glimpse into 80s/90s Scotland/Britain sometimes interesting independently of the mystery.

The Rebus stuff starts out good and gets better from there.  Rankin is among the best there is. 

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18 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

The 5th Cormoran Strike novel by Galbraith/Rowling will be available on Amazon US next week.

I’m undecided about this one.  The last installment wasn’t great and the predictable (forced) romance arc is tedious.  But I did enjoy the way the story follows Strike’s daily routine and thought process so closely. 

I read the first two and saw no reason to waste my time with any more of them.  Ugh.

But Rankin's novels on the other hand!  I loved them! even though he plots kinda poorly, he makes up for it with his characters, his location and even his action.  The stories are worth telling -- but he kinda misses bits that would make them make better sense sometimes.

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18 hours ago, Jo498 said:

Thanks for the comment; I wanted to start at the beginning. do you have any particular favs among the Rebus series, as there apparently are about 20? or so altogether.

I agree completely.  I am almost OCD about starting a book series at the beginning.  The good news with Rankin's Rebus stuff is they are all good.  I think you'll be happy if you continue with him.  As I say, the first couple are good but he settles in and that series takes off.  Your comment about the setting is spot on...Edinburgh is absolutely a character in it's own right.  Rankin isn't really all about the mystery itself, rather he's about the characters and the settings.  The Rebus books are places to visit more than mysteries to solve.  

Rankin is similar...to my mind...to James Lee Burke.  Both write procedurals that are heavy on character and setting.  I would consider them to be my favorites of the heavy hitters in that market...along with John Connolly but Connolly is different in that he has a strong supernatural element to his work.

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4 hours ago, Inkdaub said:

Connolly is different in that he has a strong supernatural element to his work.

The first two or three of the Rebus novels has more than a whiff of that about them too.  This disappears after that too.

The thing about reading Rebus in order of publication is because the relationships among the ensemble, and how they behave to each other and professionally, deepens the appreciation of how things work out in the later books.  Also one sees in this long series how much policing changes, as it does everywhere, with new social norms and with computers and cell phones, and how Rebus deals with it.

As far as Burke goes -- nobody does evil like Burke.  Which one understands all too well, if one has a strong familiarity and relationship with people who live in his locations and landscapes.  I once asked a multi-generation native of Breaux Bridge, one who reads a very great deal, and always reads books that are of New Orleans and Louisiana,  if Burke's books reflected accurately those kinds of characters.  He got in describable look on his face.  He said, "It's even worse than he shows us."

 

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I now finished the 4th Rebus novel (Strip Jack) and to me it actually seems weaker than the first three. It might be more "fluent" and less raw and involve less straining of probability but both in the character of Rebus and others and in atmosphere it seems to be far more average. The Rebus of the first books oscillates between "possessed" and really tired of everything, the Rebus of this one is very much domesticated (and again I want to cry out to all mystery writers to keep out these lame relationship troubles of their protagonists). The mystery is rather obscure in motive and a bit open-ended, maybe more realistic but also kind of lame.

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6 hours ago, Jo498 said:

 ...it actually seems weaker than the first three. It might be more "fluent" and less raw and involve less straining of probability but both in the character of Rebus and others and in atmosphere it seems to be far more average...

:agree: Or, at least, it becomes rather more international in what we're expecting out of such a character and job. Where before we were certain what we were getting couldn't come from anywhere else.  But Scotland couldn't escape those earlier years of globalization any more than anyplace else could. Even to me 1987 seems a very long time ago in terms of ease of access and travel compared to 2000's -- and I wasn't even within that painless UK to Europe, Europe to UK  that began in the 80's, thanks to Britain's membership in the EU.

It's still immersive reading though, which is not so easy for this reader to find.  Some periods are better than others of course, as does happen in such a long series.

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I'm looking for anti-recommendations. I would like to avoid transphobic nonsense like the Galbraith books in particular, and would like to avoid books that demonize queer people in general. I would also like to avoid books that luridly focus on sexual assault and torture. 

Given those strictures, which books/authors already mentioned in this thread should I avoid? 

OTOH, if there's a book series you'd really love to rep that you think I'd like, I'd love to hear it. :) 
Authors I've liked:
Ian Rankin
Tana French
Louise Penny
Agatha Christie
Peter May
Dorothy Sayers

Edited by Xray the Enforcer
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@Xray the Enforcer you might want to give Anne Cleves Vera series a try:

https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/crime-thriller/ann-cleeves-vera-stanhope-book-series-crime

(Note to anyone who enjoys this series - a new one just came out last week!)

Also, X-Ray, I do not necessarily recommend this next series to you to read because it really is light and cosy and has crazy family members and not great mysteries but I do want to bring these titles and covers in the series to your attention because I think you might get a hoot out of them.   *punintended*

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074BQB7BH?searchxofy=true&ref_=dbs_s_aps_series_rwt

I personally have spent the past three months reading Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti series.  I think I have 21 of them now?  So only 8 more to go!  They have sort of been the perfect thing to just read continually when there hasn't been anything new thats called my name.  Its just been nice to have them all lined up and to just go from the next to the next.  Not being able to travel anywhere its been great to "travel" to Venice.  I keep my map handy as I read and just follow along as Brunetti goes out and about the streets and canals of Venice.  I feel like I could just step off the the train in Venice and head off without a map and follow along in his footsteps.  I like how the author manages to find new areas and buildings for each book so no matter that you are confined to a fairly small city, there is always something new to see and explore.  I have enjoyed some more than others but I have enjoyed the range of crimes and people involved.  Perhaps the only downfall of the books is the food...there is some much yummy food and I am always reading these books late at night and they make me so hungry! 

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If the books are old enough, both queerness and explicit sexual assault (and gore as well) were mostly taboo, so you should be comparably safe with "classics". Obviously they are not safe from obvious heterosexual traditional rôles etc. I have only read about two of hers, but Ngaio Marsh is very similar to Agatha Christie and from the same time period and not in the "bizarre surprising puzzle, no matter how implausible" vein as Dickson Carr or Ellery Queen.

I love the Nero Wolfe series but it does have a good share of mid-20th century casual verbal sexism (Archie can hardly look at a woman without "rating" her some way) although never even close to anything explicit and nevertheless some strong female (side) characters including a female private detective in two books or so and Stout also wrote one book outside of this series with a female detective as the lead ("The hand in the glove" 1937).

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20 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

James Oswald’s Inspector Maclean crime novels are quite good. They’re set in Edinburgh and have a supernatural element.

Do you mean a "real supernatural" element or only the suspicion like the Hound of the Baskervilles, the Sussex Vampire or some other Holmes stories?

(Fred Vargas does frequently have the suspicion of something supernatural (curse, werewolf, vampires, wild hunt...) but it is (almost?) always resolved naturalistically.)

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