What I've Been Reading: Mysteries

[mrissa]

This morning's spam subject line theme was "mutant dicks explode." As I have been reading the first four Nero Wolfe novels, I parsed that as "Mutant detectives explode??? There's gotta be a story in that!" I was smart enough not to follow the links to find out what the spammers thought the story was, though.

(That was an alarming moment in my mom's life, when I was 5 or 6. "Mom, what's a dick? Besides Grandpa, I mean. [My grandfather's name is Richard.] The lowercase kind." "Ummm...what are you reading, honey?" "Trixie Belden, and it says this guy is a private dick." "Oh! They used to call detectives that, but I don't think you should use it that way any more.")

Aaaaaanyway, as a nice segue, even, here's what I've been reading, the mystery edition.

I reread Gaudy Night, which is just lovely, and if you haven't read Dorothy Sayers, do. Fortunately or not, my favorites are late in the series. I like it when authors improve; that's always a good thing. But I don't like it when I have to say, "Well, if you don't like the first one, you really might like the tenth one. Really."

Along those lines, I've read the first four of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books this month: Fer-de-Lance, The League of Frightened Men, The Rubber Band, and Some Buried Caesar. If dd_b hadn't lent them to me in a stack, I probably wouldn't ever have read the second one, much less the fourth; I spent all of Fer-de-Lance wanting to kick Archie (the narrator) and Nero, mostly Archie. But then they were just sitting on my desk ready to be read, and so many people whose taste in books I respect have liked these, so I picked up The League of Frightened Men anyway. And by the time I got to Some Buried Caesar, I only wanted to kick Archie about half the time, and I wanted to find out what happened next. So I guess I'm reading the Nero Wolfe books. (Archie still needs a good kicking, though. Like Turtle-from-The Westing Game style.)

The other mystery series I'm reading, also courtesy of dd_b, is John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee novels. In the last month or so, I've read A Deadly Shade of Gold, Bright Orange for the Shroud, Darker Than Amber, One Fearful Yellow Eye, Pale Grey for Guilt, The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper, Dress Her In Indigo, and The Long Lavender Look. (Oh dear. I had been typing that as The Long Lavender Loo, which was bad enough, but this time my fingers went on autopilot: The Long Lavender Loki. McGee and Meyer team up with the Aesir to...aaaaaand no. We'll just stop right there.) Anyway, these are fun to read, quick to read, available to me in stacks just sitting around available, and -- importantly for a large portion of the last month -- small, physically light paperbacks quite suitable for reading while lying down.

I keep remembering someone I knew as a teenager who loved these books, and while I didn't like him very much, I can see why he liked these books. And I like these books. It's a very weird feeling. It's like when you have a friend who is dating someone you don't like very much, but you can see why the SO fits with the friend, sort of along her other side? Yah. Like that. Sort of. (And now everyone reading this will say, sorry, I am totally unfamiliar with either of those feelings, so the analogy just made it worse. Ah well.)

I also read Denise Hamilton's The Jasmine Trade. The reviewers seemed to think this book was better because it was about an investigative journalist finding out about some subcultural irregularities, and the author was an investigative journalist who had found out those very subcultural irregularities! And I did not think that improved the book at all. It wasn't as bad as the "I'm writing a novel about someone who can't think what to write their novel about" subgenre, but some levels of self-reference don't work out nearly as well as one hopes, and I think this was one of them.

And the last mystery of the last month was Jane Langton's The Escher Twist, which was not nearly Escher-y enough, nor twisty enough, for my tastes. It was fine, entertaining, quick read. I just didn't fall in love.

Ages ago, I asked novel_gazing readers to recommend mysteries to me, because I suspected there was stuff out there I would enjoy if only I found out about it. And so I've been picking up a few here and there, and more and more I find that I like mysteries individually, sometimes in series, but not as a genre. The ones that don't hit me quite right just leave me totally indifferent. Whereas science fiction and fantasy novels that don't hit me quite right are a lot more like my relatives: sometimes they drive me nuts, sometimes I love them all out of proportion, but either way they're mine.

Or, to put it another way, sometimes the individual aspects of mystery novels interest me, but the mystery genre as a whole is not a conversation I'm all that interested in having. And spec fic is.

Still, I may read more mysteries in a year than many people who self-define as mystery readers.

Comments

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Denise Hamilton's The Jasmine Trade
This keeps looking out at me from the newly shelved mystery section at thome, reminding me that I need to weed out the books that should be in a discard pile. One of those books that proves that there is no necessary overlap between being competent investigative journalist, and capable of writing readable thriller.

And Travis McGee! - mmm, comfort reading (maybe I'm strange)

[zalena.livejournal.com]

There may be some crossover here, because you may already know Madeleine E. Robins (who also writes sf), but I really enjoy her Sarah Tolerance series about a Regency "agent of inquiry" who happens to be a female fencing master. It's very nicely done.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't know Madeleine personally, but I read her lj, and Petty Treason is sitting on my to-be-read pile at this very moment. I'm looking forward to it, but I was trying to read borrowed books before the ones I own because I thought I might get to go to California, and I don't like to travel with borrowed books. No California for me, so I can dive in whenever I please, I guess.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't think you're strange. It's reasonable comfort reading from my perspective, though they're new to me so it doesn't quite qualify that way at this point.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Like Turtle-from-The Westing Game style.

That is a reference I don't encounter often enough.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Keith Laumer's Night of Delusions (my favorite of his books) is about a Chandler/Hammett protagonist who goes through shifting worlds and realities. It's hardboiled Dick.

I am so with you on the mystery reading...

[kokyu.livejournal.com]

I love Archie. Check my email address on my LJ page for proof. Anyway, in terms of the Stouts, just wait until you read "Prisoner's Base" and "The Doorbell Rang." OMG you have some good stuff to look forward too.

McGee is great. Have you read any of the other guys named MacDonald? Ross MacDonald is great, he writes the Lew Archers and Phillip MacDonald's "The List of Adrian Messenger' is awfully good.

I am a huge fan of Dennis Lehane. It was my priviledge to study with him at a writing workshop in January. I also like Don Winslow a lot, start with "California Fire and Life", James Ellroy, Richard Price, George Pelicanos, Raymond Chandler of course, Oh jeeze, I have to stop.

[pameladean]

I just discovered Kate Wilhelm's mysteries. I'm a hapless sucker for Wilhelm's writing, so even though these are written in a peculiar omniscient that probably cheats on providing information, I really just don't care. I read two in the middle of a series, out of order, and hope to have more coherent information fairly soon.

And I WANT TO READ about McGee and Meyer teaming up with the Aesir. Whee!

I have a real love-hate relationship with those books. MacDonald is a dynamite writer, but he has some horrid ideas. He reminds me a great deal of Heinlein.

P.

Mysteries

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I have one mystery novel that I found to be just a knockout. It did not surprise me either that it won the Edgar that year for best novel, or that it became a TV movie (albeit one that I didn't get the chance to see). I am referring to *Eight Million Ways to Die* by Lawrence Block. The intertwining of private eye Matt Scudder (who says he isn't really that, but just someone who "does favors for friends") as a working problem solver and his battle with his drinking problem is just a superb intertwining; each bounces off and feeds off the other, until by the end of the book I'm left with a triple feeling of exhaustion, deep down comprehension, and catharsis. I tend to respond better to first person narratives like this one in any event, but I have had friends who also liked this -- and there's always this book's Edgar. (Other Matt Scudder novels are also good, but not as good as this one.)

Nate B.

An Unsolved Mystery For You

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

I wrote a review recently of a new Stephen King book murder mystery you've probably never heard of. There is absolutely nothing supernatural in it and it's not horror. If you're interested, the review of "The Colorado Kid" is over here. With 182 pages of King's dialogue, description, and small-town Maine island characters, I loved it. I wish he'd do more realistic-type stuff after reading this.

http://mackatlaw.livejournal.com/168361.html

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We have some Kate Wilhelms, as I went on a binge awhile ago and read every last thing. I'm willing to lend the ones I bought (I got most of them from the library). E-mail me if you're interested. I tried lending one to dd_b when I was less triangulated on what was and was not a Davidish book.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This is because you don't live here. Icon choice utterly coincidental as usual.

Re: I am so with you on the mystery reading...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have not read any other MacDonalds -- well, in the mystery genre. I don't think George counts.

Re: Mysteries

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I didn't get into Scudder when we (= me and timprov) were reading the Bernie Rhodenbarr books. I had the impression that they were darker/more violent than Bernie's (Burglar) series -- can you confirm or deny?

Re: Mysteries

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I've only read one Bernie Rhodenbarr novel. I get the feeling that they are indeed a little lighter than the Matt Scudder books, partly because (in spite of the complete three-dimensional characterization of Bernie) the fact that a burglar is the PoV character makes them mildly amusing out of necessity. Scudder is a really unhappy guy. (He quit being a policeman after a bullet he fired killed a totally innocent little girl named Estrellita Rivera, age 7, many years earlier. This is one of the things that he drowns in his drinking problem.) But he has a life that makes sense, and behaves with absolute integrity; yeah, he's a darker character than Bernie, which makes the books themselves darker, but I'm not at all sure about "more violent," and I don't think it downgrades the books. If anything, I was more sympathetic to Scudder on account of everything he's up against. (Note that I could have gone on reading more of the Bernie books, but didn't bother.)

Nate

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

They're very much comfort reading for me as well. I've reread most of them more than I can count now (there are two or three of them I don't reread). And when I reread one, I end up several more.

Meyer and McGee are one of the best-written friendships out there.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

I totally get your identification with spec fic over mystery, and feel the same way, even though I do go on mystery-reading jags from time to time. I think the thing is that, having grown up with spec fic, I've internalized the rules, whereas with mystery I still have to think consciously about the rules, so it's rather like speaking a foreign language one isn't entirely fluent in.

[toolittletime.livejournal.com]

It's definitely not great literature, but I've been enjoying some fun mysteries by Bill Fitzhugh. And he sorta works in some spec-fic stuff - "Pest Control" involves an exterminator cross-breeding assassin bugs to use against roaches instead of poison. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's definitely part of it for me, yes. I have to remind myself that mostly things are not going to be signs of worldbuilding about magic or genetic engineering or whatever. Of course, then I go reading Kate Wilhelm and sometimes they are.

Re: Mysteries

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The Bernie books were the first mystery series I read as an adult. I enjoyed them at the time, and I even still enjoy the first few, but by the later books in the series...well. Let's say I'm not falling over myself to get people to read the later ones.