Death in a Strange Country by Donna Leon

[lightreads]

Death in a Strange Country

3/5. Multiple people told me to skip book 1, so this is book 2 of a long-running and beloved series of mysteries about a cop in Venice. This one is about a murdered American soldier leading to a conspiracy about toxic chemical dumping.

Eh. I’m in the market for a long mystery series to have a good wallow in, but this isn’t going to be it, I think. It’s not that it’s bad. Quite the opposite – there’s a delicacy and depth to the portrayal of a marriage here, in particular, that I enjoyed. And the mystery itself is deliberately unsatisfying in an interesting way. And the setting is, of course, compelling. But despite all that . . . no thanks. I’ve had my fill of this guy after one book, let alone thirty plus, even if I assume he becomes less of a chauvinist over the course of the books. He would have to do that and get a lot more interesting as a person to keep me reading.

Comments

[aella_irene]

Perhaps you'd like the Gregor Demarkian series by Jane Haddam? I think they go off the rails a bit at book 20, but that's not a universal view.

[lightreads]

Hmm, perhaps I would, thanks!

[aella_irene]

There's also the John Putnam Thatcher series by Emma Latham, which have a predominantly male cast as an artefact, I think, of when they were written, because the hero is Vice President of an investment bank in the 1960s. Women are usually one book only characters, but they are all full people, with a lot of latitude in how they respond to things.

[writerlibrarian]

Have you tried Joseph Hansen's Dave Brandstetter series?

LA new noir 12 titles. Hansen wrote the series from the 1970s to early 1990s.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/52364-dave-brandstetter

[lightreads]

I have not, thanks for the rec!

Oh what lovely memories I have

[jesse_the_k]

...of these. The first mystery series I found where a queer hero was unremarkable; that is, he has to deal with bullshit, but the book acknowledges that it's bullshit.