lightreads

The Impossible Fortune

4/5. Fifth Thursday Murder Club book. Do not start here.

A good romp, with a characteristically absurd premise and various people being variously ridiculous. It’s a bit of an uneven book, though. A few chapters were so piercingly perfect that I couldn’t stand it. He is really good at writing about grief in short but beautiful ways. Also a mother/daughter relationship. Thinking about it, there aren’t that many male authors who do that well and complexly. And this book made me care deeply about Ron in ways I never expected. That’s a real trick, if you can turn a reader around on a main character after four books.

Other parts of this fell completely flat. There is a heel turn by a particular character that I straight up rolled my eyes at, because I didn’t buy it even in the fantasy of this universe. There’s something to that. The fantasy of these books where you know the characters are going to be okay from bombs and hitmen and criminal bosses, but you know they aren’t going to be okay from the other stuff. Age. Time. Loss. He’s reaching for something there that hasn’t connected yet. But in the case of this one particular character, the fantasy of okayness had to reach too far.

Content notes: References to domestic violence. Recollection of police brutality. Grief/mourning.

Identity

3/5. One of her standalone romantic suspense titles, this one about a woman whose life is wrecked and best friend murdered by an identity thief, so she goes back to her hometown and rebuilds. Classic Roberts – homemaking in the literal sense, rebuilding from the ruins, deep family connections, a romance that does not take top billing. I liked this one. The hero is actually interesting, which is not the case with many of hers, and the set dressing about the trade of bartending and hospitality in general is a welcome departure.

Framed in Death

3/5. A pretty standard procedural about an artist turning to murder to get famous or whatever. I was not feeling this one – too formula, but what do I expect after 60 something books of formula, honestly. But then this was my audiobook during 90+ minutes of extensive and painful dental work, to which I also brought my simmering case of PTSD from that time I woke out of anesthesia in the middle of eye surgery and that is triggered by having people with instruments right there in my face, which makes dental work, you know. Not great. Aaaanyway, this book basically held my hand for 90 minutes, so you know what, long live the formula.

Sidebar: I am utterly boggled by the system of legalized prostitution she has half-imagined here. Not the legalized part, with mandatory STD testing for licensure and all that. No, I’m boggled by a throwaway reference to a “street LC,” who basically bangs people for cash in alleys, getting ready to . . . apply to move up? … Wait. Apply to whom? There is a government licensing body that decides who is eligible for street solicitation versus . . . what exactly? Nora. I have so many questions. You have no answers.

.The Mimicking of Known Successes and two more

4/5. A series (two novellas and a short novel) about an investigator on Jupiter who reconnects with her old girlfriend, a professor, to solve crime.

Ignore that this is Holmes/Watson. I sure did. Making them lesbians does not suddenly make me care.

Also ignore the summary above which makes these sound like mysteries. I mean, they are. That is what is going on here. And the mysteries are fine, whatever.

No, I read these for the worldbuilding, which got more and more interesting the deeper we go. Our narrator – the professor – is a “classicist,” meaning someone who studies old Earth ecology pre climate collapse in the theoretical hope of one day rebuilding that ecosystem. As opposed to the “modern” faculty, who study life as lived on Jupiter, can you imagine, what a waste. It starts out reading like a bit of a joke, sometimes lightly funny, sometimes scathing, at the expense of academia. And then it gets more and more nuanced, and our narrator starts to untangle ever deepening layers of her biases, and questioning the project of her university and her life. And she has to ask genuine questions about whether she was, in a particular instance, the villain. And I have almost never seen that done like this, where it is a real question for the character and for the narrative, not just some stupid character self-indulgent sob fest. No, there’s a real and complex question there, and these books let it breathe.

Content notes: Toxic academic politics, futuristic racism, violence, depressive episodes.

A Ruse of Shadows

4/5. Book 8. Do not start here either.

Sherry Thomas is just really good at this. Even when she’s pulling the same tricks again – having our protagonists enact the whole plot of the book without ever explaining to the reader until the very end, false crime accusations again – I’m mostly happy to go for the ride. Here, that narrative secrecy works to enhance the way this book is also about the central romantic relationship, and how they decide what it’s going to be, and what it’s not, like adults and complicated people do.

Cocaine Blues and 20 more

4/5. Long-running series of historical detective novels about a wealthy woman in 1928/1929 Australia who solves crime, builds an unconventional family, and bangs half the men she meets.

If you’re wondering where I’ve been, here you go.

These are hard to talk about because I read 21 of them (not 22, though there is a 22nd book) and I had a pretty good time for most of them. But the most recent books were such a noticeable decline in quality that it’s left a bad taste in my mouth and now I just keep thinking about what I didn’t like. Let’s see what I can do about that.

Things to like: Phryne’s cheerful and unapologetic sexuality. The ways she is allowed to behave as male detectives do – horny, constantly drinking, etc. Casual poly relationships that suit everyone just fine and work beautifully. Mostly short mysteries with a range of solutions. Strong writing on a craft level, particularly in the middle books. An affection for the detective novels that Phryne herself reads, and a playfulness with their forms (Christie, Sayers, etc.). But with more frankness about the specific sorts of crimes that women and children are vulnerable to – incest and rape, forced relationships, botched abortion, forced childbearing, etc.

What I don’t like: Also Phryne, who is a lot of a lot. The repeated and unmistakable asephobia that emanates from the books themselves, not just Phryne who is the one to voice a lot of it (she’s one of those highly sexual people who thinks there’s something wrong/unnatural about people who aren’t, and the books let her attach these views to villains several times). The way the author just gave completely up on series continuity once the TV show started, to the point of suddenly adding a sexual overtone to a relationship that was previously platonic (and almost familial) in the books because the TV show went a totally different direction with it. It’s extremely disconcerting. The sharp decline in writing quality in the last few books. The extremely weird Sherlock slashfic interlude where Phryne bangs not!John Watson a bunch to make not!Sherlock jealous (ah and it turns out he’s not asexual after all, what a relief for everyone). The later books get real weird, guys.

Content notes: All sorts of crime, including against children. Rape, incest, sexual exploitation, violence, murder, generally as aftermath and not on-page.

Passions in Death

3/5. My preferred type of these, a good old-fashioned personal murder mystery. She puts queer people in her books now, and not entirely just as victims anymore, though there’s still that here. This is a pleasant procedural, made less interesting by the thing where Eve is the bestest detective ever who solves these cases on her gut hundreds of pages before the evidence lines up, and she is never wrong. Let the woman be wrong sometimes! Being wrong is interesting and a doorway into revealing character – why is she wrong? What are her biases (she has lots, and yet they never seem to get in the way)?

The Tainted Cup

4/5. Holmesian fantasy about the assistant investigator dragged along in the wake of his brilliant/eccentric/difficult boss to solve a set of murders that started with a tree bursting out of a man’s chest; also, the leviathans may be about to break the sea wall and kill everybody.

Great, even (especially?) if you ignore the pastiche as hard as I did. I am just so over it. But here you can ignore – there are allusions and archetypes, but there’s plenty of other there there. And what’s left is a really interesting world, vividly drawn characters that I’m hoping the series will expand upon because I have the sense there’s a lot more to say, and some musings on the nature of government and society. Is it another Divine Cities book? No, and I’m still waiting for him to produce something else in that league. But this is still a pleasure, and I will read more.

Content notes: Some body horror, passing references to sexual assault, murder

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels

3/5. Mystery novel in mixed media format (which I always think of as ‘documentation challenge’ format, which is me telling you I’ve been in fandom for decades without telling you I’ve been in fandom for decades, if you know you know). Here, a true crime writer tries to dig into a case of some supposedly satanic murders from years ago involving a cult and escaped teenagers and a vanishing baby.

This was sold to me as a good proper mystery, no domestic suspense stuff, no unfair plot reveals. This is correct, so if that’s what you’re looking for in today’s avalanche of awful people doing awful things to each other and calling it mystery/suspense, here you go. Not to say there isn’t a twisty psychological element here, because there is. But there’s also a slow-unfolding set of nesting reveals, which is a nice effect.

I was too distracted by the mixed media element, which yes, is serving a specific structural and plot purpose, and which yes, is done pretty well. Unfortunately, I’m just not sure anyone can do mixed media well enough to carry a whole book without making me say “oh come on” at least once. There’s a lot of she would never ever ever write that down here, and no fucking way she’d send this recording to the transcriptionist, come on, and the like. It works well when the format helps to conceal some secrets of mental state, but strains credulity when we suddenly have to document everyone’s secrets and lies, and we have to do it by having everyone write down everything, rather than by exploring their interiority in a more traditional narrative. Picky picky, I know. Other people will like this more than I did.

Content notes: References to violence, bullying.

Payback in Death

3/5. In Death Book number whatever. The kind I like – a more intimate murder mystery – marred by Nora Roberts finally realizing she is writing coppaganda and that it may not land well with people. Her solution? Leaning really hard into the ‘few bad apples’ theory of policing. What else is she supposed to do, I suppose. So, you know. That’s how that’s going.

A Tempest at Sea

4/5. Latest in this series about a girl!Sherlock. Here, Holmes is hiding aboard a cruise ship when a murder occurs, which might force her out into the open into Moriarty’s sights.

This really shouldn’t work as well as it does. It’s not at all a fair mystery – it hides the true sequence of events behind a series of spaced out flashbacks that are there for no structural reason at all other than to increase suspense. And the bulk of the book takes place in a series of slow but tense conversations in a single room with a small selection of characters that does not even include Holmes. Action-packed it is not. And yet.

And yet this book, like the rest of the series, is steeped in the lives of women. In how they can be destroyed carelessly, even casually by a man, and how that destruction – the loss of respectability – is disastrous and also opens up some entirely new doors. It’s about double-standards and living with them and defying them. And also, the stupid suspense tricks actually work, hmph.

Side note: Hold onto your hats, kids. Since the last time I posted, we have bought on a house, begun nearly a dozen separate renovation projects, moved, and switched Casterbrook's preschool. I am very behind, and boy do I have stress reading for you.