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


lady narcissa
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I've been on a quasi-cosy mystery kick for a while - pandemic, PhD, who knows - and have now gotten through all of Elly Griffiths' different series (the Ruth Galloways are the best (primarily for being a rather dry soap opera), though the Magic Men are, despite sounding the most cheery, the darkest. I liked the first two Harbinder Kaur a lot, but not the move to London in the third book.)

Also really enjoyed the more goofy-twisty deconstructions in Anthony Horowitz's books, particularly the Magpie Murders, though the fourth-wall-breaking Hawthorne stuff is feeling a bit repetitive and less fun. Janice Hallett's two books also great, and, not as good but readable fun, Lucy Foley's two murder-in-remote-place mysteries. Still consistently enjoying all of Ann Cleeves different series too.

On the other hand, did not take too much to Richard Osman or Louise Penny, which I found too far over on the twee and cloying side of cosy. Margaret Kirk's Shadow Man and Sarah Pearce's The Sanatorium also a bit too self-serious and not interestingly characterised enough to bear it. Trying to get into Peter May at the moment, but tough going.

Finally, Galbraith/Rowling latest way, way overlong Strike novels are...not good in many technical senses, and her politics (which she could just have left alone, ffs) are increasingly a really sickly permeation of the novels and getting more regressive and offensive by the day. And yet, she has this particular laser focus in her adult novels on issues of vanity and self awareness and self presentation where almost everyone is so, well, full of shit, in a way I still find compelling enough that suddenly I've read 1,200 pages.

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On 11/28/2022 at 9:21 PM, Datepalm said:

I've been on a quasi-cosy mystery kick for a while - pandemic, PhD, who knows - and have now gotten through all of Elly Griffiths' different series (the Ruth Galloways are the best (primarily for being a rather dry soap opera), though the Magic Men are, despite sounding the most cheery, the darkest. I liked the first two Harbinder Kaur a lot, but not the move to London in the third book.)

Also really enjoyed the more goofy-twisty deconstructions in Anthony Horowitz's books, particularly the Magpie Murders, though the fourth-wall-breaking Hawthorne stuff is feeling a bit repetitive and less fun. Janice Hallett's two books also great, and, not as good but readable fun, Lucy Foley's two murder-in-remote-place mysteries. Still consistently enjoying all of Ann Cleeves different series too.

On the other hand, did not take too much to Richard Osman or Louise Penny, which I found too far over on the twee and cloying side of cosy. Margaret Kirk's Shadow Man and Sarah Pearce's The Sanatorium also a bit too self-serious and not interestingly characterised enough to bear it. Trying to get into Peter May at the moment, but tough going.

Finally, Galbraith/Rowling latest way, way overlong Strike novels are...not good in many technical senses, and her politics (which she could just have left alone, ffs) are increasingly a really sickly permeation of the novels and getting more regressive and offensive by the day. And yet, she has this particular laser focus in her adult novels on issues of vanity and self awareness and self presentation where almost everyone is so, well, full of shit, in a way I still find compelling enough that suddenly I've read 1,200 pages.

I share your thinking on the ones I have read that you mention. I re-read Elly Griffiths Ruth Galloway series in one long binge during COVID. I found it had been long enough since first reading that I could do it without remembering whodunnit on the first page. I also prefer them to her magic men series, but I really did enjoy the novelty of the first of the magic men books. I read your post and wondered who Harbinder Kaur was. I checked my kindle and found out I had read them! Clearly they didn't grab me.

I really liked the Magpie Murders, enough to buy all the following post moderny ones. I found each worse than the other. Basically utterly boring. Didn't bother finishing the last. Likewise I started the first Richard Osman and quite enjoyed it but for some reason didn't finish. It was so much a self conscious feel good confection that it cant have gripped me that much. I've read a few Louise Penny's and they are good but not a favourite of mine.

When I read the first of Rowling's Strike novels published under a different name I though that it was extremely polished and nailed the genre and liked that it reminded me of all the previous PIs who are veterans of other wars and all their secretaries. This I liked. But they got progressively grim and found myself unwilling to enter into the grimness of the crimes or the pointlessness of all the miserable relationship complications. Must be old age, I think.

Ann Cleeves of course is the best!

I have recently gobbled up the latest Bosch book and the latest Robert Crais. Bosch manages to be not quite dead at the end so can't say its the final Bosch.

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On 12/4/2022 at 8:44 PM, butterweedstrover said:

The Hill House Murders is getting it's first ever English translation on March 14th. Something to look forward to.  

Do you mean "The Mill House Murders"?

https://www.amazon.com/Mill-House-Murders-Classic-Japanese/dp/1782278338

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On 11/28/2022 at 4:21 AM, Datepalm said:

Finally, Galbraith/Rowling latest way, way overlong Strike novels...

...I still find compelling enough that suddenly I've read 1,200 pages.

LOL!  I am currently read this.  Almost done.  And this one I am finding overly long and skimming...mainly through the tweets and DMs which are just exhausting.  It's weird to say that a series about murders and sometimes featuring serial killers has generally been an escape but it has for me with its wanderings about London and Cornwall and other English locations.  But this one, with so much of it taking place on the internet has seemed more like my day to day life and mundane and has been less enjoyable for that reason.  I wish more of it had taken place around Highgate Cemetery.  Will comment more on it once I have actually finished it. 

(I'll just note about the kindle version - there are a lot of 1 star reviews on amazon due to the formatting of the online board chats in the ebook and them being unreadable per the reviews.  For this reason I was unsure about trying to read it on kindle.  But it was on offer for $4.99 over Thanksgiving weekend so I decided to give it a look.  They must have fixed it because you get those in the unreadable font followed by the same text but in normal sized font.)

I did read the first two books in the Ruth Galloway series after they were available for $1.99 each.  On a whole I am put off by the pricing for the books in the series (most seem typically for $13.99 for kindle ebook which I will not pay for a book that has been out for several years) so I probably won't continue unless any others go on offer.  I like the mysteries and the location and the idea of the series.  But I was really put off by the relationship of the main character with another character.  Which surprised me because normally things like that don't bother me in books.  But for some reason, these particular characters and these circumstances did and gave me not a great feeling for them and the series in general.

@Datepalm Which Peter May are you trying to read?  I think his Lewis trilogy is the best of his work.  If you try to read the first one The Blackhouse and it isn't clicking, probably move on.  But if you are trying one of his other books, maybe take a look The Blackhouse before writing him off.

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@lady narcissa I'm trying Entry Island but I'm finding it a slog. None of the characters are interesting, the setting it weirdly thinly drawn, the mystery-romance-time-travel thing is annoying and I find the flashback Scotland bits actually godawful cliche and very badly written.

I quite like the central relationship in the Ruth Galloways, don't quite know why - I feel like it should be annoying but there's something so dry, adult and matter of fact about the way this

Spoiler

decade long, by the later books, affair

is drawn that I find oddly appealing and readable. There's some slightly similar themes in the way the relationships in the Magic Men books are situated as well, so maybe its something of a theme for her.

Re The Internet-Heavy Galbraith - yes, the long chats got so annoying. Both the difficulty of reading them, but also how little they added. Like they established the toxic and controlling vibe of the community quickly enough and then it would have been nice to have less of them. As ever, her teenage characters aren't as interesting as the adults, and this book skewed really young. (It's a bit like White Lotus, where folks of a certain, ahem, age, truly seem to find Gen Z's insufferable, at least in stereotype, so we get hours upon hours of that stereotype and it is, indeed, insufferable.) The previous one was also much more tightly plotted, for all it was still a trillion pages long, but the violence and nastiness were a bit more baroque and removed, I guess.

I'm also quite over Strike as Robins romantic interest. Like, I thought there was always supposed to be a certain blindness to him, a vain, shallow and even slightly narcissistic quality to his relationships with women, but instead of growing out of it, it is on full display in this book - but somehow we're still supposed to root for Robin to what, fix him?

Oh, I also read the first Wyndham/Banerjee book on the praises of the thread. It's fine? My main issues is that all the characters who aren't Sam all sound the same, and I found the politics, tbh, a little simplistic and so their extensive presence too heavy to carry off in a whodunnit. I did quite liked Sam and his issues, though he should have seen through, eh, everyone.

 

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Anthony Horowitz's 4th meta Anthony Horowitz and Hawthorne mystery. As with Osman's Thursday Murder Club novels, I feel these have reached their sell-by date.  Nevertheless, on yet a third rainy evening in a row, The Twist of the Knife (2022) kept me turning the pages.  Horowitz may have been having way too much meta fun with himself, but he still knows how to keep us wanting to know who did it.

Horowitz again shows with his meta Horowitz novels how attuned he is to the currents of what people want in mysteries even before the readers know it, needing to have him show them.  He was here already, with his recreation and updating Golden Age Detection and Murder Mysteries before the all star film All The Old Knives showed up, which have been followed not only by its own direct sequel, but others in the same vein, such as See How They Run.

In the meantime there is no way I would ever take the latest Galbraith into my hands. I doubt I could even lift it.  What kind of ego dumps a novel too heavy to hold on readers?  But then, evidently there are enough readers willing to take it in hand.

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This is an excellent thread.  I'm not much of a mystery reader, but I picked up CJ Sansom on the OP's recommendation and have binged Dissolution, Dark Fire and Sovereign over the last week.  I'm ponying up $14 more for the kindle edition of Revelation, got Heartstone for $3 and have requested Lamentation and Tombland from my local library.   

Will there be more Shardlake?

Edited by Gaston de Foix
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I'm on a Boston mini-streak, with Edwin Hill's latest, The Secrets We Share - it's the same "world" as his Hester Thursby trilogy, but she only shows up as a bit character. Like those, is more thrillery and moves a little weirdly between Proper Dark Stuff (affairs, murders, abused children, etc) and some of the hallmarks of cosy, with a suddent turn into a pile of cute animals showing up. He doesn't do much with the setting either, with the first books at least making some effort to build up some sort of posh New England Boston Brahmin milieu, which is lost a bit here (except for a continued but not especially pointed preoccupation with class prestige via social media careers.) But anyway it zips along well enough and I'll probably read the next one.

Then onto the Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill, which is also set right in and around the Boston public library and deconstructs exactly the kind of above novel in a very Anthony Horowitz bent. There's an epistolary frame and a novel within a novel within a novel with multiple nested mysteries and an author character writing a mystery novel about an author working on a mystery novel (at least neither are actually named Sulari Gentill). It's a lot of fun and she pulls it off so far (I'm about half way). I might check out her earlier series, which seems like a more conventional historical mystery in 1930s Australia.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/24/2022 at 3:57 PM, Gaston de Foix said:

Will there be more Shardlake?

As dog-days mentioned, C.J. Sansom has cancer but as he described it when Tombland came out and he talked about his cancer on his book tour, it's treatable but not curable.  I think he has had it for over 10 years at this point.  At the same time he mentioned he had hopes of writing another book but if he did it would have to be much shorter and less involved than his more recent books.  He gave the impression that writing Tombland was incredibly difficult for him and he was afraid he would never finish it.  So who knows.  I hope he does.

I did finish J.K. Rowling's most recent Strike novel, The Ink Black Heart, and it is probably my second least favorite of the series.  Lethal White is my absolute least favorite, in fact I hated it, in the series.  This is not nearly that bad but there was a lot I did not like about it including (as I mentioned above) the tweets and DMs as well as the direction of the Robin/Strike relationship.  ( @Datepalm I am quite over them as well!  Actually I was never not over them, this has been an aspect of the series where I have always hoping we never went down that path and that they could just be good friends who work together and have their separate messy relationships with other partners.)  So do not recommend.

Has anyone read the Gemma James/Duncan Kincaid series by Deborah Crombie?  10 years ago, the kindle version of the 3rd book of the series was on offer so I picked it up and read it and enjoyed it.  Enough so that I was curious to read another or two but not enough to pay $14.99 for the other ebooks.  So I waited and waited and waited and waited and finally 10 years later, four other books in the series finally went on offer for $1.99 and I picked those up and will give them a go in the near future.

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13 hours ago, lady narcissa said:

As dog-days mentioned, C.J. Sansom has cancer but as he described it when Tombland came out and he talked about his cancer on his book tour, it's treatable but not curable.  I think he has had it for over 10 years at this point.  At the same time he mentioned he had hopes of writing another book but if he did it would have to be much shorter and less involved than his more recent books.  He gave the impression that writing Tombland was incredibly difficult for him and he was afraid he would never finish it.  So who knows.  I hope he does.

I hope so too, and hope he recovers well. 

Although I think Lamentation is a natural culmination of the series with that terrifying interview with the monster whose shadow falls across all of them.  The books are more well-researched Tudor history than mystery novels.  The distinction between William Paget and William Paulet can sometimes get lost across the centuries, even to a history geek like me...

In a sense, they remind me of Steven Saylor's Gordianus the Finder, only darker.  Has anyone else read them?

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Perhaps more a thriller than a mystery?  Killers of a Certain Age (2022) by Deanna Raybourn, who is, to put it mildly, a much published writer in these lines.  This is the first -- likely only -- novel of hers I'll be reading.  It was highly recced in my hometown paper of record, which is why I read it.

Raybourn does a thorough, professional job, but there is the sense of constructing this by the book, or by the numbers. In the first Osman Murder Club, one felt the author was discovering his characters with the same surprised delight the readers would. Here, we feel the author is deliberately riffing off the success of the characters and tone of the Murder Club books, though it leans rather more into the film, Red.  

OTOH, it's the first mystery/crime novel in the last few months that's had enough of an appeal and pace that I read it.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Finished The Contentious Business of Samuel Seabury (2022) by Lexie Conyngham. In terms of plot and pacing, this didn't work for me as well as the previous book The Slaughter of Leith Hall, which featured a much younger version of the same POV character. 

Conyngham's novels often seem as if they're thinking about giving up on the whole murder mystery thing and just turning into a Regency Scotland comedy of manners. And that's normally fine since Conyngham's great at conjuring up the era, but this book dragged, and it felt as if it would have been better had she written it as gentle/comedic exploration of religious affiliation in Scotland forty years or so on from Culloden centred on the historical visit of Samuel Seabury to get himself made Episcopalian Bishop of Connecticut by the Scottish Episcopalians after being turned down by the English Church since he was unable to swear the oath of loyalty to King George. The bits of church politics that we do get are enjoyable, and I'm sure Conynham could have found a way to explore them further without ultimately turning them into a C-plot to the murder and misogyny of the A and B plots.  

It also touches on slavery, but it felt as if the novel was too fluffy overall to cope with the heaviness of the theme. Even though people at the time probably were debating the question of whether it's better to be a well-treated slave or a wretchedly-treated freeman, it still felt glib. 

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So, Tana French…really loved Tana French’s first Dublin Murder Squad novel, especially the interesting but ultimately flawed narrator and his relationship with his ~ (in most ways superior);partner…so painfully realized. Went to start the second of the series several times, but the realization that that narrator of the first novel and the weird, destroyed relationship are totally in the rear view mirror, meaning the ~ driving engine of the first is gone. That always makes me stop and choose another read. Anyone hear read the series and are able to talk me past that hitch?

 

I should note that imo the weakest part of the first novel was the kinda suddenness with which the narrator is manipulated and ~ changes loyalties, but his grief and realization of how much he’d fucked up were written so well it made up for it.

Edited by James Arryn
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After the New Year I stumbled on https://booksfromscotland.com/bfs-author/david-ashton/

These books began as BBC Radio plays, "...  based on the real life James McLevy, an Irish Police Detective working in Leith in the 1830s who wrote his memoirs in the 1860s."

https://www.fictiondb.com/series/an-inspector-mclevy-mystery-david-ashton~40934.htm

I read the first one, Shadow of the Serpent (20110, on my foney-fone on the plane, and on my laptop, the night I had to drop out of the activities due to exhaustion.  They are off, i.e not the expected tropes of all being wrapped up neatly by the end, rather in the way are the various ITV series adapted from the Inspector Whicher (played by Paddy Constantine, recently of HotD fame) cases are?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Suspicions_of_Mr_Whicher

What I distinctly did not like about Shadow of the Serpent was the author's determination to put large chunks of the narrative in itals, for no discernable reason.

Nevertheless, it is very easy going stuff, the perfect stuff to pass the time waiting at the passenger gates --reading on fone no less -- and when too tired to do anything, while waiting to calm down enough to fall into a very early, deep sleep.

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  • 1 month later...

Red Queen by Juan Gómez-Jurado, published in 2018, here, in English translation, 2023.

Fairly grisly, serial killer thing.

It is followed by two other titles, Black Wolf, and White King, will be published, presumably in the next two years.

Features the most intelligent person in the world, as far as anyone knows: Antonia Scott's IQ is supposedly 268 or something.  Her sidekick is a disgraced, overweight, gay police detective, of course. Her father was an English diplomat and her mother -- Spanish, that's all the description Mom gets!  It's fairly preposterous, but also high tension.  The sort of book that isn't my favorite. But it's set in Spain, by a Spanish writer, so I am overlooking that.

The author is also a journalist.  Supposedly this trilogy is being adapted by Netflix.  The trilogy's sold more than 2 million in Spain alone, and been published in 21 countries.

 

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6 hours ago, Zorral said:

Red Queen by Juan Gómez-Jurado, published in 2018, here, in English translation, 2023.

Fairly grisly, serial killer thing.

It is followed by two other titles, Black Wolf, and White King, will be published, presumably in the next two years.

Features the most intelligent person in the world, as far as anyone knows: Antonia Scott's IQ is supposedly 268 or something.  Her sidekick is a disgraced, overweight, gay police detective, of course. Her father was an English diplomat and her mother -- Spanish, that's all the description Mom gets!  It's fairly preposterous, but also high tension.  The sort of book that isn't my favorite. But it's set in Spain, by a Spanish writer, so I am overlooking that.

The author is also a journalist.  Supposedly this trilogy is being adapted by Netflix.  The trilogy's sold more than 2 million in Spain alone, and been published in 21 countries.

Edited by James Arryn
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