Posted January 25, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Toll-Gate, Georgette Heyer
I don’t normally get along with cases of instantaneous love, but some authors can make me go along with it. Heyer is one of them, and this mystery/romance works well. Both the male and female lead are capable and likeable, and they treat each other with respect (unlike in, say, Faro’s Daughter). All in all, it’s an appealing combination, and Heyer shows off her research in her use of thieves’ cant and dialect. If your favourite Heyer novels tend to be the ones with mysterious highwaymen, capricious noblemen who don’t mind pretending to be commoners, etc, then it’s definitely one for you — more like The Talisman Ring than The Grand Sophy.
The only problem for me was that I’m not very knowledgeable about period-appropriate dialects and thieves’ cant. Some of it I didn’t follow very well, and at times it does hinder you in understanding exactly how a certain character gave themselves away, etc. But for the most part, it becomes obvious if you keep reading.
Heyer writes with humour and flair, as ever, and the afternoon I spent devouring this was well worth it.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Georgette Heyer, mystery, romance
Posted January 17, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Grey Mask, Patricia Wentworth
Received to review via Netgalley; republished 28th June 2016
So far I’ve only read the first of the Miss Silver Mysteries: Grey Mask, which was published originally in 1928, and features mostly some young people whose lives have been messed up by a criminal network. Miss Silver is, in this book at least, a background character who comes in to solve all the problems, while Charles, Margaret and Margot are the characters who we mostly follow. Margot’s rather silly, but the aborted romance between Charles and Margaret is sweet — I found myself rooting for them before long.
I figured out the culprit pretty easily, but I was still interested in learning all the hows and whys, and there is quite a sense of tension in the last couple of chapters.
It’s fun, but not groundbreaking at this point; I’ll read more of the Miss Silver books, but I’m not hooked. If you’re a fan of Golden Age detective stories, this fits into that subset of crime/mystery novels well and will be of interest to you! Especially, perhaps, if you’re a fan of the genteel lady detective, Miss Marple style.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, mystery
Posted January 15, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Fair Chance, Josh Lanyon
Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 1st March 2017
Fair Chance is a follow-up to other books featuring Elliot and Tucker, Fair Game and Fair Play. As such, no wonder I wanted to get my hands on it! I enjoy the relationship between Elliot and Tucker. The lack of stereotyping in their relationship is refreshing. It doesn’t hurt that I also like the background characters around them. Elliot’s dad Roland is a key figure, for example. Elliot and Roland still have a fascinating bond, despite the events of the previous book.
The emotional connections feel real, and the mystery feels urgent. Particularly in this book, where Tucker is the one in real danger. I enjoy that though he’s stereotypically masculine, he expresses his feelings more than Elliot. He’s the one more prepared to discuss and compromise and figure things out. And better, Elliot is beginning to really trust this. The doubts are still there, but he’s getting used to the idea he can rely on Tucker. The deepening emotional closeness adds to the urgency.
Like I said, development.
It also feels good that at the end of the book, Elliot gets a shot at going back to the life he wanted originally. I did enjoy that he was ex-FBI, that he was a professor and had adjustments to make. All the same, it’s satisfying to see him ‘come home’ and find a new place for himself, doing what he wanted all along.
The resolution of the mystery isn’t too obvious or anything like that. I feel it relies too heavily on coincidence, and Elliot’s ability to connect the dots. It’s still a satisfying conclusion to that thread of the story. Or at least, one hopes it’s the end of that story, and Elliot’s now finally done with Corian.
On a final note, the sex scenes are okay: not too awkward, anyway. They make sense as part of depicting Elliot and Tucker’s relationship. They’re also skippable if you’re just here for the emotional content.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, mystery, queer fic, romance
Posted December 22, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Natural Causes, James Oswald
I’m not entirely sure why I originally picked this up; I think it might have been one of those deals where you can get a book for £2.99 if you buy The Telegraph, or whichever other newspaper. At the time, I was regularly buying the newspaper for my grandmother, and if her choice of paper wasn’t available, I’d pick something else more or less at random. A newspaper that offers a cheap book alongside it is always going to win with me, of course.
Anyway, so I knew little about this book going in. It seems to have caused no little frustration for some people: though marketed as a crime fiction novel, in fact the cause of the murders turns out to be supernatural. The murder can’t be solved unless you assume the presence of a demon which jumps between different people’s bodies, despite the fact that the rest of the story builds up clear chains of evidence, links together cases, etc. I don’t mind that, but I do think there’s a bit of a sense this book was mismarketed — though equally, I don’t think it’d appeal to the more fantastical crowd either. It’s no Rivers of London or Storm Front. The two elements sit oddly side by side here, and to me, it’s not clear where it’s going to go as a series. Is McLean going to become a supernatural investigator? Or was this the one strange case of his career? Presumably not the latter, since this is the first book of a series, but it’s not obvious.
The pacing is relatively sedate: it feels like a police procedural. I think that’s the problem — it’s a police procedural with supernatural trappings, and that just doesn’t seem to wash. It’d have to be more integrated — something like, to harp on it, Rivers of London.
I’m not that interested in reading other books, though it wasn’t a bad experience. Shades of fridging, though: the main murder victim is an innocent young girl whose case consumes the inspector’s thoughts because of her youth and innocence, a young PC dies to protect the main character (presumably mostly for his sense of guilt), and the most important woman in McLean’s life is his comatose grandmother, who dies partway through. Hm.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, mystery, SF/F
Posted December 14, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of, Joseph Hansen
This is one of those mysteries where you can’t root for the mystery to be solved for the sake of the victim, a man who was a bully, a racist, and thoroughly unpleasant in almost all his interactions. Instead, the characters surrounding them need to get their hooks into you, and in this case that didn’t really work for me. Much more central was Dave’s sadness over his father’s illness, his disconnection with Doug, and the connection he does form with Cecil — one that rather surprises a reader familiar with Dave, who doesn’t seem like the type to be very appreciative of cheating, and yet does so himself.
It gets a little bit too convoluted in solving the mystery, in order to bring in a bunch of red herrings and implicate several different characters. That made it frustrating, and not quite as smooth a read for me as the earlier books. It’s still enjoyable, but not a favourite.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Joseph Hansen, mystery, queer fic
Posted December 5, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
In the Woods, Tana French
I know I’m very much in the minority on this one, but I really didn’t enjoy it that much. The set-up is awesome: the whole mystery of what happened to the main character as a child is so tantalising, I think it’s probably why I picked the book up in the first place. We get so many concrete details, the whole crime scene report. It feels like a set-up for a mystery to be solved, particularly when elements of it crop up in the case that the protagonist is involved in now.
Spoiler: it isn’t solved.
I don’t necessarily demand that a murder mystery solves all the questions raised during the book — sometimes that even feels artificial. I’m not an advocate of adherence to Father Knox’s ten rules, or anything like that. But the fact that the book sets up such a compelling mystery, with so many concrete details, is just infuriating when you discover you’ll never know. Especially since the main character leaves the Murder Squad, and subsequent books do not address the issue either.
The mystery that is solved, by contrast, is too prosaic and easily solved, and I don’t care about it nearly as much. The relationship dramas of the main characters don’t attract me, and honestly, nor does the consciously literary style. It feels slow, and that doesn’t work for me as a stylistic decision. It feels like a slower, more contemplative novel about psychology and things that can’t ever be known, bolted awkwardly onto a standard police procedural — the combination is what fails to work, because each component of the story sets up an expectation about the other.
It’s odd that this worked for friends of mine so very well, and not at all for me; it might be partially the fact that I’ve actually studied stuff like the structure and set-up of crime novels, meaning I have stricter ideas of what I want from a detective novel. It’s probably worth checking out the book anyway if you want a fairly literary crime novel; other people love it, and it seems to be some vagary of personal taste leading me to dislike it so much.
Which is sad, because I was really hoping Tana French would be the next author whose books I’d tear through, a la Sayers and Greenwood.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, mystery
Posted November 14, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Busman’s Honeymoon, Dorothy L. Sayers
Featuring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey, Sarah Badel as Harriet Vane and Peter Jones as Bunter
Busman’s Honeymoon, or: the Wimseys will never, ever catch a break.
Honestly, despite the fact that it is a murder investigation, this one is fun. It has plenty of Peter-Harriet banter, plenty of Bunter being the ridiculously amazing manservant that he is, and plenty of heart as well. Peter and Harriet have finally got married, and they’re letting each other in, and Busman’s Honeymoon sees their first hiccups of married life — where Peter’s work as a detective makes Harriet feel like a traitor to friends who are under suspicion, and they have to decide who compromises… I like Sarah Badel’s version of Harriet, laughing and teasing, but warm too.
It’s not just about the relationship, though: there’s a solid mystery at the back of it, which is fun in its own right. And at least with this one, you really feel no pity for the criminal…
Rating: 4/5
Tags: audiobooks, book reviews, books, crime, Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery, romance
Posted November 6, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Strong Poison, Dorothy L. Sayers
I can’t quite remember what the bad mood was that triggered this return to Strong Poison, so soon after I listened to the radioplay version. Fortunately, given Sayers’ witty, clever and allusive writing, it’s never going to be a chore, especially since this is one of the stronger books of the series — and it was a pleasure to realise how strong the fidelity of the radioplay version was, skipping very little of the original novel.
You see, in Strong Poison, Peter falls in love… with a woman who is almost sure to be convicted of the murder of her ex-lover. Knowing she’s innocent, pretty much because he thinks she’s pretty and her character as described doesn’t support the murder theory, he arranges to meet her, immediately proposes to her, and gets her out of the murder charge by finding the real murderer while he’s at it. The banter between them is delightful, as are the moments where Harriet is more vulnerable — she’s not immune to the situation she’s in, as she shows by breaking down in front of Peter.
The actual mystery is fun as well: in retrospect it’s very obvious, because of certain precautions a particular character has taken, but the unfolding of the hows and whys is still interesting, particularly because Bunter and Parker feature fairly strongly alongside Peter. And there’s also the delightful bit where Peter encourages Parker to propose to Lady Mary…
Still a favourite — even if my eyes popped a little at the point where Peter complains how horrible it is seeing Harriet in the dock… to Harriet. And she sympathises with him and says it must be beastly. Gah!
Rating: 5/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery, romance
Posted November 6, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers
Featuring Joanna David as Harriet Vane and Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey
Gaudy Night is the odd one out in both the radioplays and the books. It was recorded later, I think, and it shows — Ian Carmichael sounds almost winded half the time, though it does get better as the book goes on. It’s quite a different tone, too, because it’s from Harriet’s point of view. In the audiobook, this involves a fair amount of first person narration of her thoughts and feelings, which was never a feature of the other audiobooks, which makes it stand out as well.
That said, it’s a pretty good adaptation, drawing together all the key features well and giving clues through the voice acting as well as the plot. In audio, it’s a little hard to keep track of all the female dons, but that doesn’t seem to get in the way too much. And Harriet’s realisation of her feelings for Peter is well done; I think I prefer Sarah Badel’s take on it in Busman’s Honeymoon, but it works.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: audiobooks, book reviews, books, crime, Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery
Posted November 3, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
The Nine Tailors, Dorothy L. Sayers
Featuring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey and Peter Jones as Bunter
The Nine Tailors is a book I think about fondly, although I can’t quite think of why. Some of it is the atmosphere, I think: the Englishness of this little village in the Fens, and the music of the bells woven all through the story — or, not music exactly, but the complex mathematical patterns of British bell-ringing. In a way, that’s how this mystery feels, too: it’s complex, with several mistaken identities and a long unsolved mystery. It’s also a sad one, because a family gets shattered through almost no fault of their own.
And the Reverend and his household are dear characters, of course.
The audio adaptation is pretty good, managing to make all the complex threads come together well. Ian Carmichael’s voice acting is great most of the time, though maybe a trifle overblown during the scene in the belfry. I guess it’s difficult to portray that scene without Peter constantly vocalising, though.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: audiobooks, book reviews, books, crime, Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery
