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

[butterweedstrover]

I just finished sparkling cyanide. 

And for the second time in my life I almost guessed the right culprit. 

[butterweedstrover]

On 4/3/2022 at 12:55 PM, Zorral said:

Upon recommendation here I've begun Elsa Hart's Jade Dragon Mountain (2015) set at the turn of the 18th C in tropical Yunnan province, close to the Tibetan border.  I got about 1/5th through last night before lights out, pulled in from the first sentence, the first character's narrative voice, the close noticing of detail in people and surroundings (he's a displaced librarian! my people!), and then all the other characters thereafter, and what goes on.  I got to what I'm assuming will be only the first murder.  And this is the author's first novel!  If it remains this good -- and have no reason to suspect it will not -- woo -- it means there are more of this character to read.  

Thank you so much butterweedstrover!

Yeah, the second book is a bit slower though I like the setting more. The third book however I think is the best. 

[Zorral]

The latest Bruno, Chief of Police (2022) fairy tale, by Martin Walker -- To Kill A Troubadour.

I swear the opening riffs informing the readers -- and the denizens of small town St. Denis, the Perigord and the Occitan -- of medieval, Islamic a-Andalus's long influence and shaping of Occitan (Aquitaine) music, language, Romances, the Troubadour traditions of poetry, etc. -- which got diffused into England even, via Queen Eleanor, and Sicily, come straight out of the opening chapters of one of Partner's early books (which have, by their own announcements from the stage, influenced musicians today like Rhiannon Giddens). So this makes the primary plot strand of the novel.  Anti-Catalonian extremists are targeting a singer-songwriter working in this long historic tradition that overlays Catalonia over the Pyrenees into southwestern France.  They wish to kill him.  But it's only one part of the objective  to drive wedges between all the western democracies and destabilize us, from the French and US elections to, well, even killing those who love and promote history.  Guess who is funding and promoting these plots, hmmmmm? 

I swear they are eating even more in St. Denis than before!  And everyone in St. Denis is even more wired into all the French institutions that have ruled France forever, from criminal to military policing, to the Church, the governments and surveillance agencies.

I enjoyed this novel because it suits my tastes, including the fairy tale (i.e. it leaves out any and all the unpleasant stuff, particularly for the poor, which it seems St. Denis doesn't have any of -- all the threats come from outside too)  aspects of living in a small town in France.  Not for everybody probably, particularly the long disquisitions on the medieval world al-Andalus's spectacular culture. And there's a puppy! one of Basset Balzac's sons, named by his Scots' retired rock star owner, the Bruce.

~~~~~~~

The only other mystery/crime novel I've read this summer was Lawrence Osborne's (2022) On Java Road. Hong Kong during the 1997 turnover protests. It was fairly disappointing.
 

Edited August 23, 2022 by Zorral

[butterweedstrover]

My favorite historical mystery of all time (which I just finished reading) is the Athenian Murders by Jose Carlos Somoza. 

It is a little unorthodox however.

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, butterweedstrover said:

a little unorthodox

In which ways?

This addition: piece in the Guardian regarding whodunnits, particularly those of Agatha Christie and the golden age of mysteries, their perennial popularity, including those from previous eras, particularly Christie's.  Why now particularly we want to see these sorts out of the genre today.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/aug/26/its-almost-like-a-soap-saoirse-ronan-and-david-oyelowo-on-how-the-whodunnit-rose-from-the-dead

Quote

.... We like whodunnits the most, it seems, when times are tough. We like them because they provide moral clarity and a puzzle that can be solved. We like them because they are a distraction, a palliative, a respite from what the philosopher Charles West Churchman called the “wicked problem” that defies resolution. The so-called “golden age” of 1930s crime fiction coincided with an era of political extremism and economic upheaval. To complete the conditions behind this vintage, just add climate crisis and Covid to the mix. ....

And do the Brits in particular have tough times, and far worse coming this winter.

So do we all, but the rest of us don't have BREXIT trade bs (other than helpless nations like Cuba on which the US has ordained even worse trade and business conditions).

 

Edited August 26, 2022 by Zorral

[butterweedstrover]

4 hours ago, Zorral said:

In which ways?

 

 

There are footnotes which are part of the story. We follow the modern day translator and the mystery set in ancient Athens. 

[Zorral]

Thank you!

[Xray the Enforcer]

On 8/16/2022 at 3:27 AM, Hereward said:

I can highly recommend the Wyndham-Banerjee series by Abir Mukherjee, set in 1920s Calcutta.

I picked up the first book based on this rec and while I haven't finished it yet, I've been enjoying the heck out of the novel thus far. If this book can even moderately stick the landing, I think I'm going to enjoy this whole series. Thank you for the rec @Hereward!

Oh yes -- I mentioned this in the What Are You Reading thread, but the book fits thematically here too. Will just copy/paste: 

I also recently finished The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (in the United States she got an extra 0.5 deaths due to similarities with another title) by Stuart Turton. I went in completely uninformed, aside knowing that it was a murder mystery with a spec fic twist, and I'm glad that I did it that way. Anyway, in the spirit of that last sentence, I won't get into any detailed descriptions, but I will say that I enjoyed the journey -- the writing and characters are very engaging (even when they're awful human beings) and the book's ending works well enough if you don't interrogate it too much.

Edited August 29, 2022 by Xray the Enforcer

[Inkdaub]

On 8/26/2022 at 6:17 AM, butterweedstrover said:

Athenian Murders by Jose Carlos Somoza. 

I will order this after I clean up my dinner dishes.

7 hours ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

Wyndham-Banerjee series by Abir Mukherjee

This is me quoting Xray quoting Hereward...and I will order the first book after I clean up my dinner dishes.

I am excited about both of these.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Aaaaaand I've already finished the first Wyndham-Banerjee book and started on the second. Enjoying the hell out of the first one -- thank you again for the rec @Hereward!

[Zorral]

I've begun a delicious suspense novel, The It Girl (2022) by Ruth Ware.  It's the first novel of hers I've picked up.  Immediately one can see why some have called her a worthy successor to Agatha Christie -- though Ware's novel is about the size of 3 Christies put together.

~~~~~~~~~

For better or worse, Galbraith/Rowling has a new Strike/Ellacott, another monster at 1,024 pp.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/16/best-thrillers-roundup-galbraith-rowling-richard-osman-erin-kelly-simon-stephenson

BTW, I've got the third Osman Thursday Murder Club on order.

 

[maarsen]

On 8/30/2022 at 6:49 PM, Xray the Enforcer said:

Aaaaaand I've already finished the first Wyndham-Banerjee book and started on the second. Enjoying the hell out of the first one -- thank you again for the rec @Hereward!

I just finished and enjoyed the first two. My library has two more and a new Walter Mosely too.

[Castellan]

On 4/12/2022 at 5:36 AM, Zorral said:

The latest installment in C.S. Harris's Sebastian St. Cy Mysteries, When Blood Lies, has just been published.  O la la, Paris and Vienna before Waterloo, and Sebastian's long evasive mother -- who may have pulled off her final evasion, the greatest of them all.

My admiration for the author's incredible discipline to keep bringing us a book nearly every year continues to grow.  She lives in New Orleans, and barely missed delivering the 2010 book that hurricane year -- getting When Shadows Dance in 2011; she's not failed to get out the books in the pandemic either.

Based on this thread I've read the first in this series and liked it (although by the climactic showdown at the end I was starting to feel there were just too many scenes involving sneaking into a building then having to jump out through the window or off the roof...) so I have bought the second. 

I liked it partly because of pure escapism and the sad wistful tone underlying our hero's daring feats.

[Zorral]

The Rising Tide (2022) is Cleeves's latest Vera Stanhope novel.  It pulls in the reader with the very first sentence, and the reader's compulsion to read 'just on more page,' 'just finish this chapter,' before going to bed. gets stronger on every page. It gets better and more interesting with every new twist and new character who must be looked at after revelations from one of the first characters.  I read it three, two-hour sessions.  Cleeves, how you do what you do!  Thinking about that again, while viewing an episode per week of the final (#7) season of Shetland, which also comes out of a Cleeves series.

[Castellan]

I checked out The Rising Tid

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Castellan said:

ed out The Rising Tide

A friend going through what one goes through being treated for cancer, read it during the same period I did -- and it was the same for her.  "My attention span these days is poor, as you know. This kept me going."  Which one does consider a high endorsement!

[john]

There’s going to be more seasons of Shetland, they’re bringing in new lead detective. Poor Tosh, she’ll never get the top job.

I read the Ink Black Heart by Galbraith/Rowling. It was ok, some of the stuff about toxic fandom was interesting, Robin and Strike are as annoying as ever but still readable. I actually thought the last book Troubled Blood was the best pure detective story she’s done, like a Christie classic except that rather than have Poirot’s boring on in the drawing room eliminating the other suspects and naming the murderer, you have all the suspicious characters eliminated over the course of a year’s investigation through painstaking detective work. Book was definitely spoiled however by the frequent insertion of Rowling’s politics.

Just finished A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle, which is pretty hyped over here as a modern book in the golden age style. Murder on a transatlantic ocean liner in the early 20s. Didn’t really like it, I felt like the classic style was overdone and then there is a twist designed to feel more modern, which was very easy to predict.

[Zorral]

On 10/15/2022 at 6:53 AM, john said:

There’s going to be more seasons of Shetland, they’re bringing in new lead detective. Poor Tosh, she’ll never get the top job.

Really? More? And Tosh is staying, after what she went through in what was to be the final season?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last night I started the third Osman Thursday Murder Club, The Bullet That Missed.  The tone Osman uses, may have reached its sell off date for me.  It's likely as skillfully put together as the first two, but the flat white archness in which all the characters couch their thoughts and conversation no matter what the subject or what happens to them and others, is getting a bit too much.  Also we've got a lot more Significant Figures to be following around now than we did in the first.  Rather too many, so it seems.

 

[Fragile Bird]

For you mystery fans, I got caught up on Saturday’s paper and I saw that Peter Robinson, creator of the Inspector Alan Banks mysteries, died of cancer here in Toronto earlier this month. He was 72. 

While taking a degree in English at the University of Leeds he saw an advertisement for a creative writing course at the University of Windsor and moved to Canada. The course was taught by Joyce Carol Oates. He then did a PhD at York University in Toronto and started writing his  Banks novels. The first one, Gallows View, was published in 1987, the most recent one, Not Dark Yet, was published this spring. The final book, Standing in the Shadows, his 29th, will be published in the spring. The titles came from songs he was listening to, Not Dark Yet, for example, from Bob Dylan.

He and his wife owned a house in Yorkshire and would spend time there every year and he’d observe the people to make sure his books’ voices were authentic. It’s in the same area where All Creatures Great and Small is filmed.

[Zorral]

 

 

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

got caught up on Saturday’s paper and I saw that Peter Robinson, creator of the Inspector Alan Banks mysteries, died of cancer here in Toronto earlier this month. He was 72. 

I was browsing his D.C.I. Banks books just this afternoon!  I really enjoyed the television adaptation and the actor who played the role.