Category Archives: Mystery

May 12, 2020 · 1:32 pm

The Devil’s Star: Norwegian murder mysteries FTW

Mum: FTW means “for the win.”

Everyone else: Struggling to read and concentrate? Yeah, me too. But not so with this super absorbing, super ridiculous murder mystery by Jo Nesbo. Having not read anything by them before, I didn’t realize I was dropping into book five of an established series, though I figured it out quickly (because I am So Smart) with references to past cases and dead partners, but WHATEVER, the narrative doesn’t at all depend on knowing these past instalments. I would say, though, that after I finished it and decided to read some more that I felt I knew a sufficient amount about our protagonist detective, Harry, that I didn’t want to read the first four novels, but would instead carry on with the series with book six. Which HAPPY DAY my library carries in electronic format. (Which SAD DAY means that reading on my screen equals I’m 6000x more likely to end up shopping on Amazon which is what I spend Way Too Much Time doing every day anyway.)

Anyway, on to the substance of the book. I don’t really know what to tell you without telling you important details. I guess it’s important to know that Harry is a super smart detective with a troubled past and personal struggles aka: the ideal and archetypal Man Detective. That the plot is twisty and turny enough to be surprising and fun, but not so twisty and turny that you can’t figure out what’s what and form some (obviously wrong) theories about what is happening. And while there is the requisite and troubling number of naked dead women, the book balances this out – a little? – by not making the murders super sexual and including a token male victim.

So anyway. Go ahead and enjoy a distracting read. I even stayed up to finish this one. Which would be more impressive if I wasn’t beset with insomnia of Epic Proportions, BUT WHATEVER.

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April 17, 2020 · 5:53 pm

Long Bright River: Remember when Opioids were a public health crisis?

There’s something so strange about reading a book about a public health crisis that is not a book about Covid19 (oh man! when do you think the first Covid19 novel will come out? And better question, the first good Covid19 novel?), but that’s what I just finished. Liz Moore’s Long Bright River explores the opioid epidemic through the lens of a police officer, Mickey, and her addicted sister, Kasey.

I picked the book because all the reviews I read were like ‘thriller!’, ‘page turner!’, ‘Can’t put down!’ and given my ability to focus right now (limited) and to read (limited), I figured these qualities would keep me engaged long enough to actually read something. And it worked! The book is all of those things, if not very good.

Mostly not good because the characters lack depth and the plot twists are very obvious and very Plot Twisty and it’s written as though it anticipates its adaptation (which spoiler, it has already been picked up for TV adaptation). But! If you are worried you will never be able to focus and read again, you could do much worse. The book is so earnestly trying (and sure, failing) to be a critique of the monolithic portrait of ‘junkies’ and addicts. And there’s something in there about gender and policing that isn’t totally ridiculous. So while it misses the mark on almost every front, it might get points for trying. And for somehow still managing to make you want to keep reading.

If you’re in the greater Guelph area and want to pick it up, I’m happy to leave it on my porch for someone – just send me a note: literaryvice@gmail.com

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December 3, 2019 · 3:25 pm

The Haunting of Hill House: Spooky

Shirley Jackson writes good creepy. We read The Haunting of Hill House for book club and all (who read it, at least) agreed that it was unsettling in the most delightful ways.

We follow a group of four as they plan to spend the summer at a haunted house observing the phenomenon and the effects on the group. Quickly things take a turn, as Eleanor, our mostly protagonist gets weirder and stranger. By the end of the book its an open question about whether she is a ghost herself, where the entire book has been a haunting vision for her, whether the people around her are real or imagined, or a combination of the above. The freedom to interpret and re-interpret makes the book a delight, and the unsettling moments (never truly ‘scary,’ don’t worry) wriggle away in the imagination for days after.

Save it for next October, maybe, or enjoy now, but worth reading if you missed it in…. 1959.

Oh and apparently there are few great adaptations for TV. Not that you watch TV, but just in case.

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September 9, 2019 · 3:42 pm

The Witch Elm: So. Slow.

Folks. Do not read The Witch Elm. Tana French is great and writes wonderful mystery novels that are giant and delightful, but this is not one of them. Though most review sites disagree with me, so I’m probably wrong or just irritable.

Toby, our protagonist, is super obnoxious. He’s entirely self-absorbed, petulant and unaware of how spoiled his is by everyone around him. He uses his girlfriend, Melissa, in ways that the novel doesn’t seem to be aware of, making her self-sacrifice some kind of example of how women are meant to be when their partners are down trodden. Melissa is cast against Toby’s cousin, Susanna, who is some Gorgon-like revenge-monster, making the alternative vision of femininity one of calculated destruction. Even while Susanna is a maternal figure, ending up with her husband because she couldn’t figure out another option, and mostly seeming bored by her children (a common trope when trying to be edgy and counter the helicopter parent).

I suppose the book is supposed to be about understanding who we are and what we are capable of when pressed by circumstance or when the culture around us doesn’t take our concerns and experiences seriously. There’s probably something meritorious in the exploration of that theme, but honest to god, the book PLODS through these questions, ever so slowly reeling out the circumstances of the murder, the connections among characters and their pasts, supposedly building suspense and adding character complexity, but really just irritating me as I didn’t see the point to long digressions about how much wine there was to be had. Which isn’t to say I want all books to be pot boilers. Honestly, I appreciated that Toby’s uncle was a genealogist, a cute way of getting the reader to think about how our inheritance, too, shapes who we think we are and what we think we should be like as people. There were other clever approaches to the thematic question, but they all kept getting blocked for me by how utterly boring the whole thing was. This question of are we born lucky. Do we control our fate. How are we constrained by gender and sexuality. What do we owe friendship and experience. How does memory contribute to our sense of self and identity. Such great questions. Just so… dull in execution.

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