REVIEW: Mystery

Death in the Off-Season: A Merry Folger Mystery by Francine Mathews
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

1994, #1 Merry Folger, third-generation police officer, Nantucket Island, New England. Cosy police procedural with an interesting case and a good plot, wonderful characters, will gladly try another.

Merry Folger works for her Dad, in the family business: she's a police detective, and he's the Chief of Police. Male detectives hate and/or envy her, even her Dad seems to think she can't do the job. Locals accept the family, the rich look down their noses at the locals, and the tourists don't seem to much care about the social strata on this small island. Merry is gorgeous and falls a bit for the Lead Suspect, brooding hunk old-monied Peter.

Sounds like a cutsey disaster, right? Sweet romantic fluff? Nope. Think Again.

Yes, Merry is beautiful but she's also smart and tough, with a realistic strength that comes from being part of a long established, well-respected, genuinely loving family. And the characters here are very well drawn, with good shadings and nice touches despite much of the writing seeming to be superficial at first look: Peter, whose black sheep no-good, high-flying big brother comes calling one night and dies in a cranberry bog on Peter's farm, and is found by the fragile Will, a young employee who has simply suffered far too much in his short life. Peter is fixated on his Lost Love who ran away with the brother years ago, and a reclusive schoolteacher is in love with him. There's more in this vein, but it's surprisingly woven in nicely and doesn't actually distract from the mystery plot:

Rusty the black sheep was once their powerful, wealthy and avaricious father's pride'n'joy - until he attempted "something" the family won't mention and got caught by Dad who not only disowned him but also turned him in to the goverment, so Rusty's been on the run for a decade. Killed immediately in the story, the plot centers on who and why, and Peter and his relations are not talking. We follow along with Merry as she works her way through what turns out to be a nicely twisted plot until the final denouement, as red herrings slide by and bits and pieces of clues surface and fade.

Over all this was well done, tidy, and interesting - I enjoyed it. And for a first novel (not just first-in-series) the flaws were minimal. But present, and that's why the comparatively low rating - for me - for a book I quite enjoyed. The ending was rushed, the "reveals" close to the end much too abrupt and portentous, without any real feeling for or about the current state of plot or character, got the feeling she knew she was coming to the end but still had a few "good bits" she simply HAD to put in! So she tumbled things down. Not bad, but not smooth - first-book-itis. The final "take-down' scene with the murderer is sketchy and too quick, not prepared for enough as well. We needed a bit more rounding out of that character and didn't get it. The feeling the murderer was only a chess piece was pretty clear, and that was disappointing, but not really bad.

And that's how I felt, ultimately, about this book: entertaining, pretty good, "not bad" for a first book, and will gladly read another in the series - I love what are for me "local" mysteries.

[NOTE: my indicator "cosy police procedural" means the lead is a working cop, but the slam/bam!!! quotient is low, as is the general blood'n'guts level. "Cosy" for me does not mean a book is sweet and "cuuu-yoote!!" in any way, it mainly means traditional format(s) of story and/or settings]

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REVIEW: History, Philosophy

Our Oriental Heritage: A History of Civilization in Egypt and the Near East to the Death of Alexander, and in India, China, and Japan from the Beginning to Our Own Day, with by Will Durant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First volume in Will (and later Ariel as well) Durant's enormous series STORY OF CIVILIZATION, this is nearly glacial in movement, very old-fashioned in its approach, and yet completely compelling and endearing, as well as enduring. Filled with a wide variety of "asides", footnotes (heck, even the footnotes have footnotes...), and sometime quite amusing little bits of story, hint, and twist, the overall writing is, while very (almost overwhelmingly) pedantic at times, enjoyable.

Best sampled in small sips, the overall narration here is very good, not too "precious", and made for a lovely way to end the day, as "this sort of thing" is the majority of books I read (listen to, usually) for a half- or an hour each night last thing before bed. It helps slow my brain, gives me something to concentrate upon that is interesting without becoming "too much!", kwim?

The hardcover or digital editions are, of course, a lot more fun, as they have pictures, albeit black and white, but many of the places visited by the Durants in the 1920s and 1930s and the pictures shown here are gone now. And far too many of the beautiful and/or interesting artifacts are destroyed as well. But the pictures as described via audio may still be found on the web, or via the Kindle edition of this (and possibly other formats or PDF-type documents). Yay, for technology!

BOTTOM LINE: Superb but slow beginning to a long, deservedly considered "classic" multi-volume work of history, sociology, anthropology, archeology, philosophic thought, and a bit of psychology too.

REVIEW: History

A History of Europe by J.M. Roberts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Long audio book, beautifully written but terribly narrated, alas. Best listened to in small bits as the reader has the most a-NOY-ing accent I've ever heard in an audiobook reader! I eventually got accustomed to him - there are over thirty hours worth of book - but for a while there, geesh...!

Otherwise this is actually a comparatively quick/short history of the entire continent; must admit, Mr. Roberts wasn't shy about tackling big subjects, was he? Enjoyed the fast pace and his rather sly writing - there's definitely humor here, both deliberate and otherwise (thanks to the narrator). The narrator uses an incredibly "posh" voice that cannot be real, simply must be affected in this day and age - he generally sounds as if he's auditioning for a Noel Coward play circa 1932 - that stilted sort of overly-"plummy" emphasis that the earliest sound actors in films used - it was terribly popular then as a shorthand for "upper class" but not now.The funny thing is I usually enjoy that sort of accent, just not one so, um, lavishly laid on, as it were... YMMV. I certainly hope he was just "having us on"...

2017 reread:
seem to have acclimated to narrator, enjoyed very much!

Mortal Stakes by Robert B. Parker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


BOTTOM LINE: This third Spenser story is a tidy PI tale centered around baseball, porno movies, and blackmail, mixed with a good deal of information about what makes Spenser "tick". A bit old-fashioned seeming now, but still powerful - and entertaining. Three-and-one-half stars, but I don't know how to give a rating of a half-star.

Marty Rabb is a terrific pitcher, and with him on the mound it looks like Spenser's (and my) beloved Red Sox are going places. Plus he seems to be, PR-wise, one of the original good guys, a kindly, not too bright jock, with all the best components of that sort of man, including a high sense of personal honor, and a joy of "playing the game" that's very old-style honorable. (and seems rather innocent now). But now there's a nasty rumor going around that somebody on the team is throwing games, and it might be good-guy Marty; the PR department hires Spenser to find out the origin of the rumor, and if there's any truth to it.

Spenser turns up lots of creepy-crawly stuff by turning over lots of rocks, and meeting with some extremely questionable folks, and we come along with him every step of the way. It's mostly first-person narration/description throughout, and it's smoothly done, in the best PI tradition. And the tone of this nicely written, old-fashioned novel does seem rather innocent when compared with mores of the current day, but I enjoyed tripping back to a time (and place) when I, too, wanted to believe in The Good Guys and their ways.

There's a good deal of examination of Spenser's rules for living and his code-of-honor and, indeed, he certainly fits the stereotype of White Knight PI to a T. And we love him for it. Plus the plot is tidily resolved, and not too sweetly neither. And, as an extra nice little bit, we get to watch Spenser and Susan's relationship developing - it's early days as yet, and she hasn't yet developed many of the quirks that make her so annoying in some of the later novels. Here she's still funny, sharp-witted (and sharp-tongued), and a nice foil to and for Spenser. All-in-all, this third Spenser novel is quietly forceful, rather like Spenser himself.





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A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


BOTTOM LINE: Thoroughly old-fashioned "good read!", with an aristo-detective, all the suspects gathered in A Great House for a weekend house party, a peculiar murder method, wild Bolsheviks complicating everything, family intrigues galore, an affable-but-dim Watson - what's not to like? First mystery novel (1934) from a now-classic author isn't challenging, brilliant, or particularly special, but is still entertaining, giving a hint of her good books yet to come and, as is usual with Marsh, there are nicely pointed sly digs here'n'there.



Nigel Bathgate's cousin Charles is a bit of a dog - loving the pursuit of ladies rather too much, he enjoys playing with fire, and gets burned, in many ways. He loses a girlfriend/possible wife (who truly loves him) while in pursuit of an already-married woman, whose current husband isn't much pleased. And while remaining rather likable (at least in callow Nigel's eyes) his superscilliousness and air of "I know better/all!" gets on not a few raw nerves during an extended house party. And not many are surprised when, in the course of A Murder Game, he winds up truly dead - and in a spectacular (how like Charles!!) fashion.



Enter Inspector Alleyn - obviously refined, very well-educated, extremely likable, his smooth demeanor hides a mildly tormented psyche, as he finds he must expose Nice People to the machinations of the police force and its subsequent events, some not at all well-mannered. With these attributes Alleyn, in Marsh's first novel, is quite ordinary, an oft-used character in popular novels of the time, and although in future novels he becomes a rather interesting personality with a fascinating backstory, in this his first recorded case he is quite traditional, and rather stodgy. And while in subsequent novels Marsh builds up the cast of regulars around Alleyn (especially the wonderful Mr. Fox), here he's pretty much the entire show, except for a funny local policeman named Bunce - yet another character that often shows up in mysteries from the 1920s and early 1930s.



The plotting, while good, is also quite ordinary for the period - a stilted setting, a twisted murder mystery with overlapping elements of several crimes, a bit of spy-thriller nonsense, some slight omnipotence from the police, and a thoroughly ludicrous bit of play-acting-cum-reconstruction of the crime at the end. But it's all very smoothly written, and while now a curiosity, at the time "this sort of thing" was quite popular.



Now considered one of the Queens of Crime of the period (along with Christie and Allingham), Marsh's first mystery is still enjoyable, if not special or especially thrilling.



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Ghost Story by Jim Butcher



BOTTOM LINE: Unlucky #13 for Butcher/Dresden Files? This was the first novel of the series that hasn't completely grabbed me by the throat from the get-go and MADE me read desperately to the end. Or, perhaps, it's just that the author has slowly become more subtle in his effects....? I'm of at least two minds about this novel.

True, I couldn't easily put it down until I'd finished, but my feeling for, terror for, Harry Dresden's plight (and the fates of those he loves) was strangely muted all through this book, and that made me uncomfortable. See, Harry has changed a great deal along the way of this long series, and I'm not so sure I like the way things are progressing. He started out a brash, young adult, (but adolescent in behavior) a lippy wanna-be-hard-nosed-detective with an infectious sense of humor, a ton of guts, and a sense of honor that I appreciated and understood. And I fell in love, completely and utterly in love with the character, the fantastical setting/universe as it grew up around him, and the people/creatures who inhabited it. And, yes, those characteristics are still present in this novel, but somehow things/his plight didn't seem as acutely desperate to me as it has in the earlier novels. I guess his death in the previous book changed him AND me in many subtle ways...


Butcher is still being coy about whether or not Harry has actually, *finally*, completely died and can never come back to "our" world, leaving devoted readers in a very complicated emotional situation. He's been slowly growing Harry up, making him more and more admirable, and now seems to have deliberately disconnected him - and us - from many of the human connections that used to make this series so compelling. Gawd, I'm so confused about this novel! When I finished it I was angry - angry at Harry's ending situation, and not a little because I'd known that was where the plot was heading, and dismayed as things unfolded that way. I wanted Harry to be OK! at the end of this novel; the previous novel had ended on a superb cliffhanger that was expertly gauged and calibrated, and I wanted A Resolution!! in this one. And didn't get it.


Aha!. *That*'s what's been bothering me. This is a place-holder of a novel, an in-depth examination of a few, very particular aspects of Dresden's universe. And as such, it's superbly done, detailed, interesting, well-paced, and with a really neat plot. Harry's dilemma (he's a ghost) is amusing at times, annoying much of the time, and scary sometimes. But. I absolutely HATE being strung along like Butcher has been doing lately. The earlier novels were complete in and of themselves, and while the interactions of the plot lines always left lots of unfinished bits, the main thrust of each story was complete within that novel, thus satisfying and completely entertaining. And as Butcher slowly developed that universe each book became richer and deeper and more complex - and I loved that! But along with that, each story seemed to leave more and more tendrils reaching into the next story, although his touch used to be very subtle, pulling the reader along gently.


Novel #12, CHANGES, sledgehammered this reader into finishing - it was a simply glorious thrill-ride with a stunner of an ending. But with that ending Butcher not only changed many of the rules afficionados of the series have enjoyed, including Harry's persona, he also seems to have changed his own connection to/with the readers, distancing not only Harry, but himself, from those fans. Number 13, GHOST STORY, takes us further along that road. Like many series readers, I hate big changes in a beloved character! And while Harry's final predicament in this novel and the hook at the end is nicely, gently foreshadowed in several earlier books (and *is* interesting), it is just not satisfying.


So. Why such a reaction from me? Obviously, Butcher has become a superb writer - he's played on my (and likely most of his fans') heartstrings perfectly, and kept our interest, nay, our affection, for many years. And with these latest novels he's extended the reach of Harry and his universe, and shows promise of doing even more in the future (we're likely going to see a lot more Faerie...). And I've loved watching Harry's friends deal with everything that's been happening, plus even the painful bits (and the potentially sappy ones as well) were very carefully, beautifully written. So, why am I dissatisfied?

I WANTED A RESOLUTION, DAMMIT!!!!

According to things he's written and other folks supposedly in-the-know, Butcher had a difficult time working his way though this book. Making such a major change in your main character's world-view must be as wrenching for the author as for the character(s) and readers, and I wasn't at all surprised to learn that he'd had problems with making this novel go where he wanted it to go. But I sincerely hope that the next book won't be many years in the coming. I want/NEED to know what happens next... and that's the true bottom line, ain't it?

Damn, The Man can *write*!

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