Tag: crime

Review – The Belting Inheritance

Posted September 9, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Belting Inheritance by Julian SymonsThe Belting Inheritance, Julian Symons

I quite liked a previous book by Julian Symons, and this had quite a similar feel: more literary and polished than some of the other crime novels in the British Library Crime Classics series, which just attempt to be good stories. And another experience has led me to conclude that, well… I don’t really like his work, on balance: I find it has a certain self-conscious feel, a knowledge of its own cleverness, that I find somewhat offputting.

That’s more the case with this one that with The Colour of Murder: the narrator is an older man recounting something that happened when he was just barely an adult, describing his naive young stumblings-about and pretentiousness with an older, more temperate eye… and in the meantime showcasing how very clever he was in some ways (like wordplay and random intuitions to dash across to France). The tone felt fussy and slow as a consequence.

The whole family are pretty unpleasant here, as is traditional, and I didn’t really get majorly involved in the mystery: parts of how it would work out were much more obvious than I think the author would’ve liked! It’s just not that clever, and something about that smarmy narrator (both his young and adult selves) just gets up my nose. Bah.

As a piece of writing, I think it’s well done, pretty well-plotted and structured and so on. The neat sketches of the characters are mostly unkind, but do conjure up people quite vividly… But overall, meh for me.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – A Dangerous Collaboration

Posted August 30, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of A Dangerous Collaboration by Deanna RaybournA Dangerous Collaboration, Deanna Raybourn

A Dangerous Collaboration is the fourth outing in the Veronica Speedwell series, and is much like the other books: a quick, fun, fairly anachronistic read which somehow still manages to sink its claws into me and make me desperate to read more. Veronica and Stoker continue to be absolute soulmates, and the obvious romantic arc continues beautifully here… though we also get to see more of Stoker’s elder brother, Tiberius, and what really moves him.

(The bit about their obvious romantic arc is not to say that I don’t wish they could’ve remained platonic. Reading Veronica as aromantic would make a lot of sense with some of her previous statements and dalliances, and it’s always kind of cool to read something where a man and a woman can just be friends. That said, Deanna Raybourn was obviously going to go there, so it’s misplaced to fret about wishing it’d steer away from the romance!)

The setting is fun as well, being relatively constrained. No dashing about London here, but instead an exploration of an old castle on an island, and the old mystery of a young bride who disappeared on her wedding day a few years before. I’ll admit I kind of called it, for no reason other than a kneejerk reaction, because I immediately suspected a character so ubiquitous and *nice* sounding.

It’ll be interesting to see how the events at the end of the book impact the next. I’m hoping it isn’t bloody Jack the Ripper, though. That would be a cliché too far for me, most likely… though who knows? I practically eat these books up with a spoon; it’ll take something egregious to shake me.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Arsenal Stadium Mystery

Posted August 29, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Arsenal Stadium Mystery by Leonard GribbleThe Arsenal Stadium Mystery, Leonard Gribble

I was kind of reluctant to read this one, though it’s been out for quite a while and I’ve picked it up in shops a few times already. Football in itself doesn’t interest me at all, so I wasn’t interested in the gimmick of it being set in Arsenal’s stadium or featuring real Arsenal players and staff of the time. It’s a bit of a curiosity, but not more than that. However, I’m not that interested in lawyers’ offices or farms or advertising offices, really, and I see plenty of those in fiction and read it anyway… so I decided to give it a go.

So in case anyone else is worried, there’s really no need to know anything about football. As with the farms and advertising firms, it’s mostly set dressing, and the motivations are love, hate, self-interest, vengeance, obligation, fascination… all the usual stuff. A player is killed during a game, and one of his teammates looks like the perfect culprit… too perfect, perhaps, thinks Inspector Slade from Scotland Yard.

It’s one of those where I didn’t really see the culprit coming; I knew who it wasn’t, from the clues and so on, but not who it was. The story spends so much time on the red herrings that I’m not sure the clues given for the real murderer are fair play. That said, I found it pretty enjoyable.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Man Who Didn’t Fly

Posted August 22, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Man Who Didn't Fly by Margot BennettThe Man Who Didn’t Fly, Margot Bennett 

The Man Who Didn’t Fly has a fairly unique set up for a mystery: a plane has crashed, with three men and the pilot aboard. There were supposed to be four men, but one didn’t fly. The bodies are lost… so who exactly died, and who survived? And why has the survivor stayed quiet all this time?

It’s an intriguing set-up, but it doesn’t end up really working for me. Most of the book is recounting the everyday life of a family who are involved with the case, as it slowly reveals clues to what happened, who exactly died… and what crime was committed. It took a while to see the solution, for sure, but that’s partly because it felt rambly, and because so much time was given over to Hester mooning over one of the male characters. Said male character being an obvious scrounger and pain in the butt, who goes from one house to the other in search of freebies and handouts, it was not a very enjoyable experience.

I just couldn’t believe in the supposed depth of feeling there… and there is another romance in the book, and it comes more or less out of nothing. The whole emotional life of the book is lacking, and it leaves the ending pages hollow. Like, who cares?

Aside from the premise, I can’t say I really liked this at all. I ended up reading to the end because I wanted to know how things turned out, but I felt like I’d been blundering around in a directionless morass. I don’t find Hester particularly likeable, though there are glimpses of likeability (she wants to study medicine; she honestly cares for her father, even as they fight) — and there’s something just so… irritating about the prose. Solidly not for me, despite the effusive preface and the award this book almost won at the time.

Rating: 1/5

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Review – The Woman in the Wardrobe

Posted August 18, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Woman in the Wardrobe by Peter ShafferThe Woman in the Wardrobe, Peter Shaffer

The Woman in the Wardrobe features a few elements I usually find myself disliking, to wit an amateur detective full of bombast, wit and ego, and a locked-room mystery. There are some definite similarities with Gideon Fell… but the writing style is so breezy — and the included caricatures of various characters so full of life — that it swept me right through my usual objections. It’s one of those with a clever trick ending (as most locked-room mysteries are) and it worked reasonably well.

I can’t say I like the amateur detective, but at least the narration knows he’s a bit of an ass. It doesn’t push too hard on his genius, though there is a very Sherlockian scene with a reverie over a pipe just as the case is reaching its conclusion… It’s all contrived, of course, but it’s fun. It mostly helps that it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Green Mill Murder

Posted August 10, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Green Mill Murder by Kerry GreenwoodThe Green Mill Murder, Kerry Greenwood

The Green Mill Murder is one of the books of this series which really sticks in my head, mostly because of the descriptions of the flight over the mountains, and then the silence and space of the mountains. That part is so vividly imagined — including Phryne’s dislike of it — that it can’t help but stick in my head… that and the sheer awfulness of both Charles and Mrs Freeman. The mystery itself feels a little unfair… I knew how it was done and still couldn’t piece it together until Phryne, like magic, pulled it out of the hat. I don’t always mind that, myself, but it does rankle with some mystery readers, so it’s worth knowing.

Ostensibly the main mystery of the book is the murder which happens in its opening page, when one of the dancers in a marathon dancing session suddenly collapses, and seems to have been killed with a very slim knife. Something’s changed about the corpse when Phryne next looks at it, but she can’t put her finger on what… and in the meantime her date has vanished off to be copiously sick. Or just vanished: the policeman who goes to look for him finds no trace.

I find the main mystery oddly forgettable, though, despite the power of Nerine’s voice and Tintagel’s alleged charms. I didn’t really see it myself, for Tintagel’s case, though of course Phryne is susceptible to a pretty face… it’s just that he’s also a bit of an amoral bastard, and that always colours my reading of his character. In any case, the bit that sticks in my head is Vic Freeman and his lonely hut. Or not lonely, really, given he has a horse (actually a donkey or mule, I think? I am too lazy to get up and check), a dog, and a wombat (who proves instrumental). The rest of it is full of awful people, but Vic is just happy to be alone, to have some silence and healing away from the city.

It’s an enjoyable read, but sometimes feels a little lopsided to me, because of the bits of the plot I prefer.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – A Scream in Soho

Posted August 8, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of A Scream in Soho by John G. BrandonA Scream in Soho, John G. Brandon

Ooookay this one is just somehow really not my thing. It’s all Italian mobsters and German spies, slathered on thick with a side of racial determinism. The policeman at the centre of the story, McCarthy, is prone to violence to get his way — and has a rather Holmes-ian moves-in-mysterious-ways air about him, along with various sidekicks pulled off the streets and a disguise or two. It’s fairly obvious whodunnit, from pretty early on, and whydunnit comes pretty quickly after as well. After that, McCarthy just knocks some heads together and does some casual breaking and entering.

The joy of Golden Age crime fiction is often the sense of order, the sense that things in Britain are fundamentally good and just. It’s a total nostalgic lie, and always was, and the noble policeman as much as any of it… and this doesn’t have to be everybody’s thing, but I do think it’s a big part of what calls to me about E.C.R. Lorac’s series detective, or John Bude’s: they are decent men, doing a job which they believe to be serving justice, and doing it for the right reasons.

Needless to say, then, I did not enjoy McCarthy, even though he’s probably more realistic in many ways — particularly not since we’re supposed to be entirely on his side. Nope, nope, nope.

Not one for me. 1/5 stars feels kind of unfair, but… no, I can’t honestly point to anything I liked.

Rating: 1/5

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Review – Head On

Posted August 6, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 5 Comments

Cover of Head On by John ScalziHead On, John Scalzi

I don’t know why it took me so long to read this sequel to Lock In; I really liked the first book, and Scalzi’s work is always breezy in the best way. Unsurprisingly, when I got to this I steamed through it in two days (and I’d gladly have finished it in just one day, but bedtime is a thing that has to happen now I’m getting to the ripe old age of 31). Head On is set a year later than Lock In, and to some extent, I think you can read it without the previous book; it catches you up pretty well on the most pertinent information.

The investigation centres around the death of an athlete during a game in which people piloting robot bodies try to tear each other’s heads off. Something about what happens during play when one of them gets his head torn off causes him to die… and the league pull his details from the live feed, arousing the suspicions of Chris Shane. It gets worse: right before Vann and Shane go to interview him, one of the bigwigs apparently kills himself.

Curiouser and curiouser, as they say. Everything spirals from there, with Scalzi’s usual pace and wit. Some aspects of the mystery were obvious to me pretty early on, but it’s fun to watch Scalzi spin it out and complicate it before bringing it home.

It feels maybe a little less urgent than the first book, somehow, and I probably still prefer Lock In… but it’s a worthy sequel, and I’d love to spend more time following Shane and Vann around as Vann bulldozes her way through all opposition to solve the case.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Lock In

Posted August 3, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Lock In by John ScalziLock In, John Scalzi

My review is going to discuss a certain aspect of this book that you might like to make your mind up about yourself, in case you haven’t read it. It’s not a spoiler per se, but it’s something you might like to bring a fresh perspective to!

So that said, Lock In follows Chris Shane, a brand new FBI agent… who happens to have had “Haden’s syndrome” as a child, leaving Chris “locked in”. It’s pretty much how it sounds: some people who get Haden’s syndrome after a bout of a particular pandemic strain of flu find themselves unable to communicate, unable to move their own bodies, but awake and aware. Back when it happened, Chris was just a child… and all kinds of funding and research was thrown at the situation to render Hadens (people who were locked in) to communicate, and eventually to pilot robot bodies around and interact with society in much the same way as anyone else.

Chris joins the team that deals with Haden-related crimes. The first week… does not go smoothly. Therein lies the story of a conspiracy, some real nastiness, and some familiar-feeling events and issues.

The first time I read this book, I read Chris as male; I’ve since experienced the narrator as female, having listened to the Amber Benson version of the audio (there’s a version with Wil Wheaton as well, a clever gimmick). This time… I didn’t really bother either way? Having realised that it wasn’t part of the narrative, I read Shane as being more like myself… but only now I know about the gimmick. Before that, even I couldn’t help myself!

Anyway, Lock In is a pacy and entertaining mystery, with some thrilling action scenes, banter and clever quips, and moderately high stakes. The characters are likeable enough, inasfar as you’re meant to like Vann, and in retrospect it’s an obvious set-up for a series (now with a follow-up, Head On). I’ve read it before, so I steamed through it knowing all the twists and turns, and just kind of enjoying watching Scalzi experiment with this narrator and with a near-future world.

He missed some tricks with his portrayal of the pandemic and its aftermath, in some ways; it’s surprising that Haden’s is caused by an influenza and there’s no reference to vaccines or anything… and somehow that same strain of flu is still burning on, still causing the same disease, when someone who caught it as a child is old enough to be an FBI agent. Other stuff is pretty on point, and one can only hope the funding and government initiatives that help Hadens in the book are coming for “long COVID” and vaccine research. I won’t hold my breath; I think Scalzi’s vision was really optimistic here (though I suspect partly based on initiatives like the March of Dimes for polio).

Enjoyable, even on a reread when it couldn’t spring surprises on me and I’d read all Shane’s lines before.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Mystery at Olympia

Posted August 3, 2020 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Mystery at Olympia by John RhodeMystery at Olympia, John Rhode

I enjoyed John Rhode’s work under the name of Miles Burton, so I snapped this and two others up when I spotted them. Rhode is a fairly workmanlike writer, without the exquisite turns of phrase of Cox or Sayers, or the deep sense of place and character of someone like E.C.R. Lorac. They’re puzzles to be solved, with an ingenious method of murder and all kinds of twists in the tale (four separate attempts to harm the victim, any of which could have killed him… and not all by the same culprit, for instance). There are some nice little character sketches (primarily Mrs Markle, but with neat little impressions of several other characters and how they think).

The way it works out is surprising, mostly because I think there are really insufficient clues; it’s one of the school where the detective is utterly reasonable in his suspicions, but hopelessly wrong, and the big man of the story (Sherlock in some, Dr Priestley in this) has it all figured out in actuality… and it’s so Machiavellian and labyrinthine that you can’t guess. That’s not something I enjoy greatly in too big a dose, but it was nice to settle back and let the story carry me to its conclusion in this case. I knew I probably wouldn’t work it out and that there’d be a surprise, so thus prepared, I just passively followed the process.

Probably I’ll avoid reading Death at Breakfast or Invisible Weapons too soon, and come back when I’m ready to be told what the non-obvious “obvious” solution is.

Oh, and if you’re just picking it up and wondering if you need to follow all that explanation about how the fancy new transmission works in the cars at the Olympia show… the answer is no. You can skip that whole spiel. Someone got too pleased with his own idea there.

Rating: 3/5

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