Review: Mad Mouse by Chris Grabenstein

Title: Mad Mouse

Author: Chris Grabenstein

Narrator: Jeff Woodman

Publisher: Audible Inc [2007]

ISBN: n/a [downloaded from audible.com]

Length: 8 hours 10 minutes

Setting: New Jersey, USA, present day

Genre: Police Procedural

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 4/5

One-liner: Great narration of a light-hearted book that does make you think a little too.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It’s nearly the end of summer in Sea Haven, New Jersey, but one last beach party is planned before the tourists leave for the winter. The party is threatened however when someone starts shooting the good people of Sea Haven, first with paint ball guns but then with real bullets. It appears that the targets of the sniper might be part-time, rookie policeman Danny Boyle and his friends so Danny’s partner John Ceepak has even more than the usual imperative to quickly find the culprit.

I read and reviewed Tilt-A-Whirl, the first book in this series, in October and it’s rare for me to read series books in such quick succession. However, I needed a book with broad appeal for a long car trip with a couple of friends and, frankly, I did wonder if my enjoyment of the first one was a bit of an aberration (it being such a ‘feel-good’ book and me being such a bitter old cynic). Happily I loved Mad Mouse just as much as the first book (as did my two friends, neither of whom read much crime fiction).

Whereas other ‘feel-good’ books drive me to drink and/or mutter under my breath I am quite entranced by this series. I think in part it’s the sense of humour displayed by the narrator, Danny Boyle, which nicely offsets the perfectness of John Ceepak. It’s also partly due to the fact that even though the books are somewhat light they do tackle some tough subjects. Mad Mouse, with its double-meaning title, explores the impact that people’s actions have on those around them, even relatively minor actions that are quickly forgotten by all but one person, and also takes a look at the damage parental expectations can have on their children. The three of us who were listening together talked for quite some time about these issues after we’d finished listening to the book.

The series also has a nicely developing partnership between Danny Boyle and John Ceepak and in Mad Mouse we learn a little more about their personalities . In the weeks since the events of Tilt-A-Whirl Danny has matured a little and is now certain he wants to be a full-time police officer. Ceepak hasn’t changed too much although he does start to poke a little gentle fun at himself and is also sweetly tongue-tied when the teenage son of a woman he’s met tries to convince him to ask his mother out on a date. There’s a nice mentoring role between Ceepak and Danny and I am already wondering what will happen to these two in the next book.

I’m quite chuffed to discover that my enjoyment of the first book in this series was no aberration as there are several more for me still to read. The story was engaging, the characters delightful and the narration superb.

 

Review: Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Title: Last Rituals

Author: Yrsa Sigurdardottier (translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder)

Publisher: Hodder [this translation 2008, original edition 2005]

ISBN: 987-0-340-920633

Length: 423 pages

Genre: Amateur Sleuth

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 4/5

One-liner: A book about a mutilated body shouldn’t be funny but this one is deliciously so.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

At the University of Iceland the mutilated body of student Harald Guntlieb tumbles onto one of his professors when the door to a small room is opened one morning. Police soon arrest Harald’s friend Dori, who they believe to have been his drug supplier, for the murder. However Harald’s family in Germany are unsatisfied with the investigation and send an investigator they know, Matthew Reich, to Iceland who teams up with a local lawyer, Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, to find what the police might have missed. Together they re-trace the steps Harald took during his research into the history of witchcraft and magic, believing that might have played a role in his death.

When Last Rituals won the ‘what shall I read next’ roulette wheel spin I dove in without even reading the blurb let alone taking another look at the reviews that must have prompted me adding it to the TBR pile in the first place. Consequently I wasn’t anticipating a funny book so the laughs generated by Thóra’s humorous and somewhat cynical internal monologue and her sarcastic bantering with Matthew were a wonderful surprise (and a tribute to the translator as I think linguistic humour must be a difficult thing to get right). Probably because I tend to have a similarly bent view of the world I really appreciated Thóra’s attitude which, though irreverent in some circumstances, never got in the way of her getting things done. She also demonstrated genuine backbone when it came to standing up for her son in the face of overwhelming disapproval and I found myself liking Thóra, and the overall tone of the book, very much.

The plot is a standard whodunit despite the macabre overtones provided by the mutilated body and the research topic chosen by Harald. His small group of friends, all part of a group devoted (at least part-time) to the performance of sorcery, provide a pool of potential suspects although I have to admit I didn’t find these characters quite as believable as the two main characters. However the fact that the case led Thóra and Matthew to discover interesting tidbits about Iceland’s history of dealing with witches and witchcraft was interesting (if a bit complicated at times).

Last Rituals is the author’s first adult novel (she also writes children’s books) and it’s quite a stellar debut. The characters and style are original and the plot is intricate but logical. I’m looking forward to more from Yrsa Sigurdardottier.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Last Rituals is also reviewed at Euro Crime, again at Euro Crime, Reviewing the Evidence and at Aust Crime Fiction

 

Review: Publish or Perish by Margot Kinberg

Title: Publish or Perish

Author: Margot Kinberg

Publisher: Eloquent Books [2008]

ISBN: 978-1-60693-747-1

Length: 211 pages

Genre: Amateur sleuth/police procedural

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 3.5/5

One-liner: A light and delightful mystery

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Nick Merrill is a graduate student at Tilton University where he is also a tutor and software developer. He’s popular with his students, is juggling sexual relationships with two women and looks like being successful in both an academic and commercial sense with his new software. Unfortunately for Nick, Tilton University is a hotbed of insecure, ruthless and desperate people, any of whom could have it in for him. His two love interests find out about each other, his fellow graduate student is incensed when Nick receives an award she believes is due to her and his academic mentor might just be taking credit for Nick’s hard work in a last-ditch effort to obtain tenured status.

I have read Margot Kinberg’s excellent blog for a while now and one of the things that is crystal clear is that she is a fan of classic crime fiction, in particular the work of Agatha Christie. It probably won’t come as any surprise then that this book reminded me in some ways of those great Christie tales in which readers are introduced to the victim and all the potential suspects before a murder takes place. It didn’t really strike me until I re-read a couple of Christie novels this year that this particular style of introducing people doesn’t happen much anymore but when done well, as it is here, it’s an excellent way to draw readers quickly into the story because you ‘know’ the victim and are invested in finding out which of these people you’ve met is a killer. In procedurals and even in most ‘cosy’ mysteries someone stumbles across the body of an unknown person and only meets the suspects after the murder has occurred which means you never see the characters behaving ‘normally’. Introducing them all before the death gives a different, more intimate, perspective that I find I really enjoy.

There’s a full cast of interesting characters here including Joel Williams who is a former policeman turned Professor at the University whose classes are observed by Nick as part of his work as a research assistant. When there is a murder, and then another one, Williams uses his contacts at the police station to learn what’s happening with the investigation and uses his own skills and access to University personnel and students to assist the police with the case. Even some of his students get in on the act in a quite delightful thread although they soon decide that murder investigation is a little more dangerous than what they’ve seen on TV.

As Kinberg is herself an Associate Professor at an American University I can only presume that she has depicted the environment well which means it must be a scary place to work! It reminded me of those small town mysteries I enjoy so much where all the characters are connected in some way and seemingly all have at least one secret the want kept hidden. I would recommend the book to anyone who wants a light, well-written mystery without a lot of blood and violence and lots of good old-fashioned plot threads to unravel.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Full Disclosure: I won a copy of this book in a ‘name a character’ competition at the author’s website

Publish or Perish has also been reviewed at Mysteries in Paradise, Petrona and DJ’s Krimiblog

 

Review: Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo

Title: Sworn to Silence

Author: Linda Castillo

Narrator: Kathleen McInerney

Publisher: MacMillan Audio [2009]

ISBN: n/a (downloaded from audible.com]

Length: 11hrs 43mins

Genre: Police Procedural (small town)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 3.5/5

One-liner: Engaging characters in an interesting setting but I could do without the violence .

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

One night in the middle of winter a body is discovered in the snow in a small town of Painters Mill, Ohio. The woman appears to have been brutally murdered in a way that reminds everyone of a series of murders which took place in the area 16 years previously. The one person who doesn’t believe the same killer, named the Slaughterhouse Killer at the time, is active again is the town’s Police Chief Kate Burkholder. She shares a secret with two other people about that previous string of murders which makes her almost positive it’s a different killer. Accordingly she points the current investigation in other directions but the town’s other officials bring in outside help to ensure that the investigation focuses on any links to the Slaughterhouse Killer case.

The most engaging aspect of this book for me is the character of Kate Burkholder and the aspects of town life that are depicted through her. The area is home to an Amish community, of which Kate was a member until she was 18, and there is some unrest between the other townspeople and the Amish. Although Kate is no longer Amish her brother and sister are still in the community and overall she respects the Amish community even though she chose not to join it. She is a focal point for relationships between the town’s two divergent cultures and I am a sucker for stories which feature religions different to the one I was brought up with. Kate also struggles for much of the book with the knowledge that her secret may be forcing her to take actions which are not in the best interests of solving the case and I thought this complex issue was portrayed very realistically.

Overall the story was well paced: not screaming along at thriller pace but nor did it plod. There were several minor climax points before the ending and I didn’t lose my attention once. As well as being intrigued by Kate, my interest was held by an array of minor characters, mainly working in the police station. The seeds of a series were most obvious with this introduction of an engaging cast although I can’t envisage endless storylines in this setting.

I did struggle with other parts of the book. I found the burgeoning relationship between Kate and one of the external investigators brought in to help, John Tomasetti, too predictable and a bit soppy. However this probably won’t bother most readers who can’t be as unromantic as me. There were also a few plot points I found stretching my credibility metre. At one point for example someone is framed as the perpetrator of the murders and I just could not buy that everyone but Kate was so gullible as to accept the most unlikely killer. However my real issue was with the overly graphic depictions of the violence visited upon the victims of the killer (because of course one body is never enough). It really didn’t add anything to the story to have several paragraphs of bodily mutilations described for each victim and, rarely for me, I wished I was reading rather than listening so I could skip those bits.

Sworn to Silence offers a really solid story, some engaging characters and an interesting setting (although perhaps I got extra enjoyment because each mention of the wintry snow made me forget, momentarily, our unseasonal heatwave). However I’d like to see the next book avoid the overly gruesome violence.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The book is very well narrated by Katherine McInerney and the audible version that I bought has a nice bonus in the form of an interview with the author. It’s an interview by the publisher so it’s not exactly hard-hitting but does provide an opportunity for Castillo to talk about her research methodologies (she has completed two lots of civilian police training among many other activities) and she gives some good background to the book. Unfortunately she wasn’t asked about the value of the detailed and gruesome depictions of the violent mutilations of the victims and whether or not she thought the book could have been just as good without them.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This book has also been reviewed at Petrona (where Maxine shared my concerns about the violence but not about the romance), Lesa’s Book Critiques, Book Addiction and Whimpulsive

 

Review: A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn

Title: A Beautiful Place to Die

Author: Malla Nunn

Publisher: Pan MacMillan [2008]

ISBN: 978-1-405-03877-5

Length: 397 pages

Genre: Historical crime fiction / police procedural

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 5/5

One-liner: A stunningly confronting yet beautiful book.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

In the early 1950’s in the small South African town of Jacob’s Rest the police captain, Willem Pretorius, is found brutally murdered. When Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper is sent to investigate he struggles against the backdrop of the newly instituted racial segregation laws (apartheid) . Pretorius’ Afrikaner family want quick vengeance: they distrust Cooper who is English and assume it is the black community or coloureds who have killed their patriarch. At the same time the Security Police descend on the town and work on the theory that Pretorius was killed by a communist or other political activist and they soon sideline Cooper from their investigation.

Of the many striking things about this book the one that is likely to stay with me longest is the unflichingly honest picture it paints of the time and place in which it is set. So many engrossing details of both the political and physical setting are provided that I easily felt myself in the town of Jacob’s Rest with its roads for whites and its kaffir paths and its segregated Sunday church services with potluck dinners. I felt awkward and angry as the realities of the segregation laws were demonstrated through the story playing out but despite my discomfort I found myself unwilling to leave the place even for a moment and read the entire book in a single sitting.

On top of the setting the book has stunning characters. Cooper struggles with nightmares from his days in the trenches during the war and regularly argues with the voice of his former Sergeant Major. Although white he is distrusted by the powerful Afrikaners but also finds it hard to be accepted by the myriad second class citizens although, ultimately, it is a myriad collection of these people, including captain Pretorius’ Zulu ‘brother’ Constable Samuel Shabalala, who help him with his investigation. But it’s not only the sympathetic characters who are brilliantly depicted: Lieutenant Piet Lapping of the Special Branch is one of the most loathsome men you’ll find in crime fiction, all the more so because he’s entirely believable.

Of course none of this would be worth much if the book didn’t also tell a gripping story and there’s a real old-fashioned whodunnit here. In trying to uncover who killed Willem Pretorius Cooper uncovers a series of crimes that have been left unsolved because the victims weren’t white and also learns of Pretorius’ own moral lapses. He races to find what these events may have had to do with Pretorius’ death as he tries to salvage his own career from being ruined by the Special Branch.

This is yet another book that has everything I look for in my crime fiction and had me alternating between indignant mutterings under my breath, heart-in-my-mouth fear and more than a few tears.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A Beautiful Place to Die has been reviewed at Aust Crime Fiction,  Reviewing the Evidence and Crime Down Under

Malla Nunn was born ins Swaziland but lives in Australia so we’re claiming her as ours. This interview with her on Radio National’s Book Show last December prompted me to go out and buy the book (and it only took me 11 months to rescue it from the TBR pile).

 

Review: Don’t Look Back by Karin Fossum

Title: Don’t Look Back [the second Inspector Sejer novel although the first in the series available in English]

Author: Karin Fossum [Translated by Felicity David]

Publisher: Harcourt Books [2002]

ISBN: 978-0-015-603136-3

Length: 295 pages

Genre: Police Procedural

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 5/5

One-liner: Thoughtful, captivating and very, very readable.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

In a small Norwegian village the near-naked body of a teenage girl is found at the lake. Once they identify her as Annie Holland Inspector Konrad Sejer and Officer Jacob Skarre learn that everyone liked the athletic young girl who babysat for most of the village’s children although many people mention the change in her behaviour some months before her death. Having precious little in the way of evidence they have to determine whether it was just a normal part of growing up or whether there an event in her life that may have had something to do with her death.

I’ve had this book in my TBR pile for over a year and it may have continued to languish there among all the others but for this week’s crime fiction alphabet post by Maxine at Petrona. What struck me particularly was a quote from Fossum about being interested in “‘the good guy who does something evil’ rather than the bogeyman.” Although I have read my share of rampaging serial killer books I generally don’t find them as satisfying as those that explore the circumstances and motivations behind ordinary people reaching some kind of breaking point and so was keen to get stuck into the first Inspector Sejer book translated into English.

I knew absolutely nothing about the story when I started reading (I deliberately didn’t look at the blurb) and was hooked by the twist in the opening. As the book started I thought it was going to be about one sort of crime and just as I geared myself up for that it turned into something completely different. From then on the story was pieced together like an intricate jigsaw with many pieces needing to be turned this way and that before slotting into place to help reveal the whole picture. Without car chases or guns blazing the story managed to be suspense-filled and captivating from beginning to end as Sejer and Skarre teased out important details about village life from its inhabitants

Fossum builds up her characters in a similar way as she does the plot: slowly revealing their secrets, pasts and fears over the course of the book. As you’d expect with the main characters we develop a fairly clear picture of Sejer and Skarre over the course of the novel but the minor characters too are equally well depicted, even if only in one aspect of their lives. Annie’s father’s conversation with the man in charge of the crematorium is one of the most beautiful depictions of a grieving father I have read.

Don’t Look Back has all the things I love most in crime fiction: interesting, believable characters, a puzzle-like plot, a setting I can get lost in and a tangible credibility that sometime somewhere that exact scenario has played itself out in reality. Or will one day.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Don’t Look Back has been reviewed at Reading Matters and Thoughts of Joy

 

Review: Mr Dixon Disappears by Ian Sansom

Title: Mr Dixon Disappears (the second book in the Mobile Library Series)

Author: Ian Sansom

Publisher: Harper Perennial [2006]

ISBN: 0-00-720700-X

Length: 253 pages

Genre: amateur sleuth

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 3.5/5

One-liner: A gentle, body-free tale for those who enjoy words being put together well.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Israel Armstrong is the librarian for the Tumdrum and District Mobile Library, Northern Ireland. One Saturday morning he arrives at Dixon and Pickering’s Department Store to set up his acclaimed five-panel touring exhibition of the store’s history to find the store’s proprietor, Mr Dixon, has disappeared and someone’s stolen all the cash from the safe. The Police arrest Israel for the crimes and when he’s released on bail he has to try to solve the case using techniques gleaned from a random selection of crime fiction and with the help of Ted the local cabbie (and general odd-job man).

If you are looking for a book with an engaging and intriguing plot to keep you up past bed time I would suggest you go elsewhere because you won’t find one here. Honestly, the entire thing can be summed up in two paragraphs and even then is a bit contrived to be sensible.

However, if you can put aside your need for story for a couple of hours and just enjoy the beauty of funny, well constructed sentences and some charming characterisations then I highly recommend the book. Sansom was (or possibly still is) a columnist for The Guardian and he brings the same kind of wry, observational wit and love of language to the writing here.  Just after he is released on bail Israel is driven back to Tumdrum

Tumdrum! What can you say about Tumdrum?

An impartial observer – and indeed Israel himself until this morning – might perhaps have said that the best thing you could say about Tumdrum was that it wasn’t actually offensive…Tumdrum was not really the kind of place that inspired you to want to stick around for too long: it was  not the kind of place that threw its arms around visitors and offered you a hundred thousand welcomes: it was more the kind of place that made you want to check the bus timetable to find out when the next bus might be leaving.

But to Israel, now, this morning, Tumdrum was like Shangri-La.

There are some delightful characters in the book too and even though they initially might present as absurd you really ought not dismiss them as such because they all, in their way, offer insight on their world and the people in it. Whether it be the Reverend Roberts who cheekily introduces an element of showmanship into his Easter service or Robbo the local version of a radio shock jock Sansom uses his characters to make some shrewd observations about people.

I suspect It’s not the sort of book that everyone will like  but language lovers and people who’ve seen enough dead bodies for a while will enjoy this one.

 

Review: The Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell

Title: the Dogs of Riga (the second Kurt Wallander novel)

Author: Henning Mankell (translated by Laurie Thompson)

Publisher: Vintage [originally 1991, this edition 2001]

ISBN: 1-860-46959-0

Length: 326 pages

Genre: Police Procedural/Espionage thriller

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 4/5

One-liner: An intense throwback to thrillers like Gorky Park

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A lifeboat holding the bodies of two dead men washes up on the shore near Ystad, Sweden and Kurt Wallander’s team must investigate. They soon discover that the men were dead prior to being placed in the life raft and then that the men were from Latvia. A Major from the Latvian Police comes to Sweden to assist with the investigation but returns home after only a few days. A major event that could be connected then forces Wallander to go to Riga in Latvia where he is like a fish out of water in a murky political world.

I only read my first Henning Mankell book, Faceless Killers, last year (yes, yes I know I am late to the party). While it was a good read it wasn’t a great one and frankly I found Wallander to be a bit of a boring stereotype so I didn’t rush to pick up the next book in the series. However, having bought the first four books all at the same time because they were on special I embarked on The Dogs of Riga, albeit without a lot of enthusiasm. Luckily I found this story much more engrossing and stayed up way past my bedtime to finish it.

One of the things that struck me most about this particular book is what a good job Mankell does of putting readers in the shoes of Wallander the outsider when he travels to Latvia. The mix of curiosity, confusion and fear that Wallander displays seemed very natural to me. Although we often see these traits in amateur sleuths or accidental heroes we don’t often see ‘official’ investigators in situations where this kind of uncertainty would be believable but in this situation it’s entirely credible. The Latvia that Mankell depicts during a time of political upheaval is a world apart from Wallander’s native Sweden and his growing discomfort with the differences is palpable.

Despite all of that I still can’t warm to Wallander as a character. His hypochondria, bowel problems (ugh!) and ‘helpless male’ shtick just don’t grab me and nor does his habit of believing himself in love with various women at the drop of a hat. About the only thing I like about him is his habit of ‘consulting’ his recently deceased colleague and mentor Rydberg which I found quite touching. He is certainly a richly created character but not one I’d care to meet in real life. Far more than the first book in the series this was a book about Wallander alone so the rest of the characters were fairly two-dimensional although as I was so engrossed in the story I didn’t mind this as much as I normally would.

As I read the book I was reminded of Margot Kinberg’s recent blog post about the politics of murder as this book is all about politics which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. With the bulk of the book being set in one of the three Baltic states which were, when Wallander wrote it, yet to achieve their full independence from Russia the book is dripping with big picture politics and how various individuals coped with their highly charged environment. Some took advantage of the changing landscape while others fought to return to different points in the past and I was thoroughly intrigued by this depiction. In fact the book reminded me of the cold war thrillers I used to devour than a traditional police procedural.

I haven’t decided if I will read the rest of the books in this series or not as I suspect my real enjoyment of this one might be an aberration due to the subject matter and I don’t know if I can stand another encounter with Wallander’s teenager-like behaviour. Does the man ever grow up?

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Inspector-Wallander.org is a great site with all the information about various incarnations of Wallander that you could possibly want. As well as details about the various books (their publication dates, translation availability etc) there are FAQs, character details and information about the various films and DVDs that have featured Wallander.

 

Review: Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie

Title: Dead Man’s Folly

Author: Agatha Christie

Narrator: David Suchet

Publisher: Harper Collins [This edition 2007, originally 1956]

ISBN: N/A [downloaded from audible.com]

Length: 6hrs 1min

Genre: Private Detective

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 4/5

One-liner: A book that simultaneously manages to offer exactly what you expect at the same time as a surprise ending

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Hercule Poirot receives a frantic phone call from his friend Ariadne Oliver, a writer of murder mysteries. She has created a live murder game for a fête to be held in the grounds of Nasse House which is the home of Lord and Lady Stubbs but she believes there is real danger lurking at the House and she begs Poirot to come immediately. Oliver gives Poirot little to go on but her feelings and, perhaps because of this, he fails to prevent the murder of the young girl who was only supposed to be playing the role of victim in the murder game. He subsequently participates in a stop-start investigation before finally solving the crime.

I was prompted to read this book by one of Margot Kinberg’s excellent contributions to the Crime Fiction Alphabet meme. Margot highlighted the humour of the book and as that is an element of crime fiction I enjoy and hadn’t really associated with Christie before I thought it would be an interesting choice for me. I wasn’t disappointed. The Ariadne Oliver character really does make a nice contrast to the somewhat prissy and proper Poirot with her ability to laugh at herself and it does seem like Christie was having a bit of fun with her genre by using the ‘mystery within a mystery’ twist.

This twist is also a perfect device for Christie’s favourite ploy: misdirection of her readers. Even though I know that her plots are always complex and that the obvious clues are red herrings to be ignored I still didn’t come close to picking up on the key hints that led to the solution. As almost always with Christie’s books, the uncovering of the murderer follows a wonderfully convoluted and unexpected journey. One of the things I liked about this book is that Poirot didn’t seem quite so cocky as he is in earlier stories. He doesn’t inveigle himself into every single interrogation and for some time it seems as if he might not even solve the mystery at all. I found this slightly more humble Poirot more likable than I have in the past.

I notice that some people mention struggling to keep track of all the people who appear in this book and I think this is where listening to the audio book had me at an advantage. David Suchet is a superb narrator and manages to provide all the characters a distinctive voice which is very helpful in such a dialogue-rich story. I must admit I am becoming quite addicted to Suchet’s narrations of Christie’s works.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

If you’ve read the print book and listened to the audio book of Dead Man’s Folly clearly the next step is to play the hidden object game based on the book. This screen shot has me tempted.

Another blog to have reviewed Dead Man’s Folly is Books Please as part of the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge that Kerrie from Mysteries in Paradise is hosting.

 

Review: Murder Between the Covers by Elaine Viets

Title: Murder Between the Covers (the second dead-end job mystery)

Author: Elaine Viets

Publisher: Signet

ISBN:1-86254-486-7

Length: 268 pages

Genre: Amateur sleuth/cosy

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 2.5/5

One-liner: A light, undemanding read

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Helen Hawthorne works for cash at Page Turners, a family owned bookstore in South Florida. The proprietor, Page Turner III, is horrible to staff and customers alike and few people are upset when he is murdered. Helen is forced to investigate his death when her friend Peggy is arrested for his murder and finds that almost everyone who knew Page Turner had a good motive for killing him.

The interesting fact behind this series (which as of this year will run to eight books) is that before writing each book Elaine Viets does the jobs that she describes in the book. She was, according to her website FAQ, a bookseller for over a year before (or perhaps while) writing Murder Between the Covers. I’m sure this is what helps to give the bookstore and its myriad of demanding, (and only occasionally lovely) customers. Having done my share of time in jobs dealing with the general public I found much to relate to in that aspect of the book.

The rest of the book is fairly standard for the genre. Each potential suspect is eliminated, generally via direct questioning, until there’s only one potential killer remaining and most of this was done quite believably although the ending was a little too contrived.  There are a series of oddball characters, such as Helen’s purple-loving 76-year-old landlady, Margery, who provided the kind of humour I tend to like in my cosies.

My one problem with the book is that I never quite bought into the Helen character. The premise is that she works for cash because any income she earns officially has to be shared with her ex-husband so even though she’s well-educated she works ‘dead-end jobs’. I suspect that in the real world someone smart in similar circumstances would just get themselves some good quality fake identification and get a better paying job. So there were quite a few points when I thought “well you really don’t have to be in that situation” and so I couldn’t summon up the sympathy I’m sure I was supposed to have.