Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers: B

September 6, 2009 by 4 Comments

havehiscarcaseFrom the back cover:
The mystery writer Harriet Vane, recovering from an unhappy love affair and its aftermath, seeks solace on a barren beach—deserted but for the body of a bearded young man with his throat cut. From the moment she photographs the corpse, which soon disappears with the tide, she is puzzled by a mystery that might have been suicide, murder, or a political plot. With the appearance of her dear friend Lord Peter Wimsey, she finds a reason for detective pursuit—as only the two of them can pursue it.

Review:
On the one hand, Have His Carcase is nothing short of delightful. Upon learning that his beloved Harriet Vane has discovered a body upon a stretch of coastline, Lord Peter dashes to the scene with a stated claim of interest in the case, though he is really there to defend Harriet, lately the defendant in a notorious murder trial and likely to be suspected on that account. When the local police force seems content with a verdict of suicide, Peter and Harriet proceed to work together to prove the victim was murdered. He still loves her and often cavalierly asks her to marry him, but she steadfastly refuses. While the banter between them is brisk, witty, and wonderful, the most emotional moments are really the best, like when Peter confesses that he camouflages his proposals in flippancy because he can’t bear to see the repulsed reaction a genuine query would engender.

Sayers sets the scene for these two right at the start in a highly amusing way that I must quote out of admiration for its economical humor:

The best remedy for a bruised heart is not, as so many people seem to think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth… Harriet Vane found all three specifics abundantly at her disposal; and although Lord Peter Wimsey, with a touching faith in tradition, persisted day in and day out in presenting the bosom for her approval, she showed no inclination to recline upon it.

Significantly less delightful, alas, is the investigation itself. This aspect of the book definitely has attributes to recommend it—I had no idea who’d really done the deed and had even begun to think perhaps Sayers would conclude by saying, “What do you know, it really was suicide!”—but bogs down a lot in lengthy passages spent decoding ciphers or tracking down innumerable townsfolk possessed with an uncanny ability to remember the precise time they saw a certain gentleman get into a Bentley. Cracking the case hinges on the time of death, so a lot of emphasis is placed on alibis and many theories are advanced that attempt to make all of the random clues work together. It’s kind of interesting, but does get rather tiresome after a while.

Still, it’s a solid mystery and I am satisfied that some progress was made in tempting Harriet to reconsider the merits of the Wimsey bosom.

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Booked to Die by John Dunning: C-

August 20, 2009 by Leave a Comment

bookedtodieFrom the back cover:
Denver homicide detective Cliff Janeway may not always play by the book, but he’s an avid collector of rare and first editions. After a local bookscout is killed on his turf, Janeway would like nothing better than to rearrange the suspect’s spine. But the suspect, sleazeball Jackie Newton, is a master at eluding murder convictions. Unfortunately for Janeway, his swift form of off-duty justice costs him his badge.

Review:
Denver Detective Cliff Janeway has a grudge against one particular thug named Jackie Newton. Newton has managed to elude prosecution for the various crimes that Janeway is sure he has committed and Janeway has developed an obsession with pinning something on him, so much so that when a bookscout is found dead with a method of death similar to other crimes attributed to Jackie, Janeway immediately leaps to the conclusion that Jackie must be responsible and spends the first half of the book almost exclusively pursuing Jackie Newton rather than considering any other leads. He flagrantly breaks established rules of policework time and again and eventually loses his badge over it.

And we are supposed to like this guy?! I can’t shake the idea that author John Dunning worried that readers might find a sleuth who collects books to be too wimpy, so he took steps to make sure he’s seen as a macho tough guy. All of the posturing to that end gets exceedingly boring, and there was one section, featuring an unsympathetic doormat who’s essentially determined to do nothing to stop Jackie’s abuse and harrassment, during which I realized I hated every single character in the book, with the possible exception of Janeway’s long-suffering partner.

Thankfully, once Janeway gives up being a cop and opens an antiquarian bookstore instead, things improve a great deal. His contact with Jackie is reduced—aside from the lawsuit Jackie files after Janeway hauls him off into the middle of nowhere and beats the crap out of him—and there’s a good deal of interesting detail about setting up his shop and hunting for treasures. After a three month interval, however, Janeway begins to get embroiled in the now-cold case of the bookscout’s murder and once again uses whatever methods he damn well pleases to get to the bottom of it.

While the second half of the book is definitely better than the first, I can’t say that I really am much impressed with the mystery itself. It involves too many indistinct characters for one thing, and for another is just plain boring and predictable. Janeway continues to make a lot of assumptions about things, and seemingly has no compunction with carting away boxes of evidence (rare and valuable books) rather than leave it for police to find. I have to wonder whether anything he uncovered would ever be admissable in court. During the investigation, he also strikes up a relationship with a lady (I fight the compulsion to call her a dame, in the tradition of hard-boiled mysteries of yore) and, in Dunning’s attempt to depict how gritty and visceral their attraction is, keeps his gun in his hand throughout their first moment of intimacy. The lady is apparently fine with this, since she has a thing for violent dudes.

Ultimately, Booked to Die is a big disappointment. The idea of a mystery series with a bookseller as amateur sleuth has definite appeal, but there are so many things I dislike about the actual execution that I don’t think even the lure of booky goodness could entice me to continue with the series.

Additional reviews of Booked to Die can be found at Triple Take.

Filed Under: Books, Mystery, Triple Take

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters: B

August 11, 2009 by 4 Comments

From the back cover:
Amelia Peabody, that indomitable product of the Victorian age, embarks on her debut Egyptian adventure armed with unshakable self-confidence, a journal to record her thoughts, and, of course, a sturdy umbrella. On her way to Cairo, Amelia rescues young Evelyn Barton-Forbes, who has been abandoned by her scoundrel lover. Together the two women sail up the Nile to an archeological site run by the Emerson brothers—the irascible but dashing Radcliffe and the amiable Walter.

Soon their little party is increased by one—one mummy, that is, and a singularly lively example of the species. Strange visitations, suspicious accidents, and a botched kidnapping convince Amelia that there is a plot afoot to harm Evelyn. Now Amelia finds herself up against an unknown enemy—and perilous forces that threaten to make her first Egyptian trip also her last…

Review:
Amelia Peabody is a proud and independent 32-year-old spinster who has decided to put her inheritance to use by doing some traveling. After coming to the rescue of Evelyn, a young woman who’d collapsed in the streets of Rome, the two of them travel to Egypt where they meet the Emerson brothers, do some excavating, and are harassed by a supernatural menace.

While I liked most of the characters as well as Amelia’s blindness to her growing feelings for the elder Emerson brother and Evelyn’s amused awareness of same (You’ve heard of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? Well, this is Pride and Prejudice and Mummies), I found the mystery plot of the novel to be incredibly obvious. In fact, very early on I predicted to a friend (who’d already read it) not only the identity of the culprit but some of his/her specific nefarious deeds. Later on, Amelia herself confirmed my impression by saying, “The plot now seemed so obvious I felt a child ought to have detected it.”

Still, the flaws in the plot have not dissuaded me from continuing with the rest of the Amelia Peabody books. The first volumes of mystery series are seldom the strongest, so I assume some improvement is in order. And besides that, I simply want to read more about Amelia and Emerson and their love, which seems to be equal parts withering scorn and impassioned smooching.

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The Brimstone Wedding by Barbara Vine: B+

June 11, 2009 by Leave a Comment

brimstoneFrom the back cover:
“It’s crazy thinking I can tell her,” says Genevieve Warner, thirty-two years old, thirteen years into a loveless marriage, and recently swept into her first passionate love affair. “She’s so old. She’ll have forgotten what sex is.”

But Stella Newland, the gracious, dignified, dying woman that Genevieve cares for in an English nursing home, has not forgotten. She knows all about love: its promises, its betrayals, its sometimes deadly consequences. She learned her lessons thirty years ago in a country house she owned, and owns still. When Genevieve confides in Stella, the old woman reciprocates by giving Genevieve the key to the now forlorn house, and by telling this young woman who will be her last friend, in the few minutes a day her failing strength allows, the story of her own erotic entanglement in adultery and worse, much worse.

Review:
Genevieve Warner, employed as a “carer” at a nursing home, feels a special affection for her charge, Stella, an elegant elderly woman who, unlike the other residents, seems firmly grounded in the present. As Stella’s condition worsens, however, she begins to confide in Genevieve about her adulterous affair of 20+ years ago and the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of film star, Gilda Brent. Parts of the tale parallel what Genevieve herself is going through as she is engaged in an affair of her own.

The Brimstone Wedding possesses a puzzling duality of attributes, in that it’s rather predictable at times yet still unforgettable. Most of the revelations in Stella’s story are easy to see coming, and one is often left merely waiting for the details to be revealed to Genevieve. Even so, the tale from the past is intriguing and the characters in the present so vivid that it’s hard to fault the story too much for going where one expects it to go. In fact, it’s done in such a way that I wonder whether Vine even intended for these revelations to be big twists at all.

The tone is different from other works by Vine (a.k.a. Ruth Rendell) that I’ve read recently. Mostly this is due to Genevieve, who has spent her life in rural Norfolk and has been raised to believe in all sorts of folksy superstitions, giving her a rather unique outlook. She’s also not weak and annoying like the heroine of The Keys to the Street, for which I am grateful. All in all, I enjoyed the book, and will certainly be reading more by this author in future.

The Brimstone Wedding was another recommendation from Margaret.

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The Private Patient by P. D. James: B

May 11, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Book description:
In James’s stellar fourteenth Adam Dalgliesh mystery, the charismatic police commander knows the case of Rhoda Gradwyn, a 47-year-old journalist murdered soon after undergoing the removal of an old disfiguring scar at a private plastic surgery clinic in Dorset, may be his last. Dalgliesh probes the convoluted tangle of motives and hidden desires that swirl around the clinic, Cheverell Manor, and its grimly fascinating suspects in the death of Gradwyn, herself a stalker of minds driven by her lifelong passion for rooting out the truth people would prefer left unknown and then selling it for money.

Review:
The Private Patient isn’t bad—I think it’d be impossible for P. D. James to write a bad novel—but it isn’t very gripping. It’s written in her usual style, very descriptive of setting, even down to the retirement home accomodations of an obscure family solicitor, and spending a lot of time with the victim and her environs before the crime actually takes place. Like most of James’ novels, this one involves a small institution of some kind with a precarious financial future, and a limited cast of subjects connected with it.

Perhaps I’m a bit jaded, but I’d expected a few more twists and turns out of this. There’s one point, quite near the end, but not near enough that it seemed a culprit should really be revealed, when all evidence seemed to point to one person. “Ah,” I reasoned, “this person is the red herring. We will now get the twist ending when it will turn out to have been Y instead of X!” Except all that happens is that X commits a completely unnecessary additional act of violence and gets found out, leaving me going, “Oh. It was X. Huh.”

Much like the previous book, The Lighthouse, this could possibly be the last in the Dalgleish series. The whole reason Dalgleish’s squad is on the case in the first place is because a wealthy client of the clinic got her politically connected hubby to pull some strings. This rankles with Dalgleish quite a lot, as one might imagine, and the increasing politicization of his squad, along with the possibility that it will be eliminated in forthcoming budget cuts, makes him ponder retirement. The door’s still open, however, as the novel ends without Dalgleish making a firm decision in either way.

If this is the last novel, I’ll be slightly disappointed in the ending, which doesn’t focus on him at all. Instead, we get an epilogue about those still at the clinic as well as an attendee’s view of Dalgleish’s wedding. Then again, perhaps this slipping out of the limelight and into quiet, happy domesticity exactly parallels Dalgleish’s fate. That’d be nice.

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Case Closed 3 by Gosho Aoyama: B+

May 7, 2009 by 1 Comment

From the back cover:
Jimmy, Rachel and Richard take a vacation aboard a cruise ship, but little do they know that the patriarch of the wealthy Hatamoto family is about to be murdered. With the perpetrator still aboard, can you figure out whodunit before Conan does!?

Review:
I actually quite liked both cases in this volume, which is good, because as the first chapter started out I was feeling rather blah about it all and wondering whether it was time to give up the series.

The first case happens not aboard a cruise ship, as the back cover claims, but upon a charter boat hired by a wealthy family who has celebrated a wedding upon their private island. The family patriarch hates everyone but his granddaughter, and everyone but her hates him, so there are plenty of suspects for his sudden death. Conan, of course, puts it all together. What I liked about this case is that it didn’t involve a needlessly and ludicrously elaborate killing method. The victims are stabbed and, in one case, bludgeoned. The clues instead involved things like locked doors, missing murder weapons, et cetera. Perhaps that’s why this is also the first case where I actually had guessed the correct culprit!

The second case involves a surgeon who has received an old toy and a million yen each month going on two years. The best part of this case is that Rachel starts to realize just how much Conan is leading her father through important deductions. She confronts him a few times about his being Jimmy, but he manages to weasel out of it in the end by having Dr. Agasa call and use the voice modulator thingie to simulate Jimmy’s teenaged voice. Having read some volumes in the upper twenties, I know that Rachel still doesn’t know the truth, but I still really enjoyed her suspicions and how she isn’t fooled by some of the stupid things Conan tries to throw her off his trail.

Filed Under: Manga, Mystery, Shounen Tagged With:

Case Closed 2 by Gosho Aoyama: B

February 19, 2009 by 1 Comment

From the back cover:
Conan must contend with the murder of a man who burns to death while the prime suspect has the perfect alibi; he helps a seemingly sweet and innocent girl look for her missing father; and he still has time to explore a haunted house with some of his new friends from elementary school!

All the clues are there—can you piece them together and solve these baffling cases before Conan does?

Review:
“All the clues are there,” it says. I would be highly surprised if I ever figure out one of these cases before Conan does, especially one with a ludicrously intricate method of offing someone.

I like this volume better than the first one. I think it’s because the three cases it contains are different from the kinds I’ve read so far. Instead of proving who did it and how (see above re: ludicrously intricate), they’re more about finding proof. In the first case, the prime suspect for a murder has the perfect alibi, so it’s up to Conan to disprove it. It’s actually a pretty fun story, even though I sigh heavily when Conan plays back a taped confession he’d obtained to the villain who’d just made it and is then surprised when the dude attacks him. Not so smart for a smart kid.

Later, a young girl claiming to be looking for her father is not what she seems. I would’ve enjoyed this story more if the back cover hadn’t given it all away by referring to her as “seemingly sweet and innocent.” This story also has some connections to the men in black who are responsible for changing teenage detective Jimmy into first grader Conan. The final chapters involve Conan and some first grade buddies investigating a haunted house and discovering its secrets.

This volume is a very quick read and contains neither the insanely elaborate plots nor the “Conan impersonates an adult to reveal the solution” that I was getting tired of. Conan also receives a lot of new gadgets from Dr. Agasa, and those are fun to see in action, too, even though it’s highly improbable that a soccer ball, even one kicked by a foot wearing super-powered sneakers, could ever fell a tree.

Filed Under: Manga, Mystery, Shounen Tagged With:

For the Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George: B

February 18, 2009 by 2 Comments

From the back cover:
Elena, a young, flamboyant Cambridge student, the daughter of a professor nominated for a prestigious post, is found brutally murdered on an isolated jogging path. Frustrated by a rarefied world in which academic gowns hide murderous intentions, New Scotland Yard’s Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner Sergeant Barbara Havers sift contradictory clues to Elena’s elusive character.

For both officers, not until they come to terms with the woman Elena was—Jezebel, victim, iconoclast—will they have a chance of stopping her killer.

Review:
It was such a relief to read about a case in the present day and a novel in which the detectives’ personal angst didn’t overshadow the investigation and actually was rather tied into it in a way. Havers was back, too, and her companionable relationship with Lynley was quite enjoyable to witness.

The case itself was interesting if not thrilling, and I thought George did an admirable job of portraying the victim as a multi-layered person. So many negative things were learned about her through the course of the investigation, but I never could forget our first image of her—being kind to her pet mouse before going out on what would be the last morning run of her life.

Unfortunately, many of the other characters involved were thoroughly unpleasant, mostly in the things they’d say to or demand of other people in their lives. On several occasions I had to take a break for a bit because a scene or conversation had surpassed my limits for such things. It’s interesting that I can blithely accept an account of a girl’s murder without so much as flinching, but let the narrative dwell too long on recriminations exchanged between members of the dead girl’s family and I must look away, in a figurative as well as literal sense.

Some of the unpleasantness did serve a purpose, however, as the preoccupation of the murdered girl’s father with appearances helped Havers to realize that there was no shame in finding a place for her senile mother to live where she’d be better cared for. Too, the demands and desires of some of the men in the case helped Lynley see that he’d been focusing on the things he wanted his would-be wife, Helen, to do and be for him, rather than considering what he could do and be for her.

Ultimately, this was a good entry into the Lynley series. I see that the next features Deborah St. James prominently, however, and I fear for a return of her baby angst.

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The Quest for the Missing Girl by Jiro Taniguchi: A-

February 2, 2009 by Leave a Comment

When asked whether I’d like to contribute a guest post to Comics Should Be Good, I said, “I’d be delighted!” In fact, I’m actually going to be doing an occasional feature for them called Blue Moon Reviews, so please check it out! Here’s my first review for them!

Thanks again to Danielle Leigh and Brian Cronin for the opportunity.

Filed Under: Manga, Mystery, Seinen Tagged With: ,

Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey: B

January 29, 2009 by Leave a Comment

From the back cover:
Leys Physical Training College was famous for its excellent discipline and Miss Lucy Pym was pleased and flattered to be invited to give a psychology lecture there. But she had to admit that the health and vibrant beauty of the students made her feel just a little inadequate. Then there was a nasty accident—and suddenly Miss Pym was forced to apply her agile intellect to the unpleasant fact that among all those impressively healthy bodies someone had a very sick mind…

Review:
Miss Lucy Pym, after receiving a legacy from a relative, has retired from her life of teaching and become somewhat of a lay expert on psychology. Having written a surprisingly successful book on the topic, she’s been regularly giving lectures. One of Lucy’s former schoolmates, now principal of Leys Physical Training College, invites Lucy to come and speak to her students. The first two-thirds of the book is Lucy getting to know the students and the staff, and sets up the “nasty accident” that is to come.

Like The Franchise Affair before it, Miss Pym Disposes begins quite charmingly but becomes rather improbable toward the end. The book is almost wholly populated by female characters, and to see a lot of girls bustling about, learning medical skills as well as honing their own physical prowess reminded me a bit of the Sue Barton series of books. Some mildly racist attitudes and comments mar this section, and Lucy’s waffling over what to do about a cheating student gets a bit annoying, but overall it’s pleasant fun.

After a certain point, the outcome becomes a bit predictable. The cheating student is undeservedly given a prime post at a distinguished girls’ school that everyone had assumed would go to another girl, and is eventually mortally injured by a bit of gymnastic equipment. I found it quite easy to peg the culprit, despite Tey’s attempts at subterfuge. The improbable elements begin with what Miss Pym, a “feeble waverer,” does with an important bit of evidence, and also the too-convenient testimony of a couple of nearby residents at the inquest.

Overall, I liked this less well than The Franchise Affair and found it to have some of the problems I noted in the first two Inspector Grant books (racism, convenient plot developments). It was, however, written earlier, so I remain optimistic. I’ve now read four of Tey’s eight mysteries, and still plan to complete the lot.

Filed Under: Books, Mystery Tagged With:
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