Monday, April 1, 2019

MARCH MYSTERY MADNESS WRAP-UP

I managed to read the requisite six books for this challenge but I had to switch out one of the originally planned reads for another title. But let’s face it, the prompts are just an excuse to read whatever I want! 

1. For my Josephine Tey book, I randomly picked To Love and Be Wise from the three titles I had left to read. I liked it. It reminded me a little of Brat Farrar. And for fans of Inspector Grant, he is very present in this one. 


2. The Elizabeth George book, A Banquet of Consequences, was not as terrible as I had feared. It was, in any case, better than the last two in the series and I will probably read the next book.


3. For the "New" category, I switched Out by Natsuo Kirino for The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing.  I first heard about The Big Clock from blogger Thomas at Hogglestock.  It is very much in the classic mid-century hard boiled/noir vein and was very entertaining.


4. I also really enjoyed Lion in the Valley by Elizabeth Peters. The Amelia Peabody series, from which this title is the forth installment, has really grown on me. The characters and mysteries are cartoonish, but fun.  I also listened to this on audio which is particularly entertaining because the narrator, Barbara Rosenblat, is superb.

5. Similar to the Amelia Peabody series, the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series is also pure comfort reading. It is impossible not to love Mma Ramotswe and her gentle ways of solving people's problems. I also listened to almost all of The Kalahari Typing School for Men as narrated by Lisette Lecat who was very good. 

6. Lastly, I liked Life Sentences by Laura Lippman but don't think it is her strongest work, though I think she is a good writer.  It felt like she wanted to break out of the mystery/thriller genre and write literary fiction but felt obligated to keep the crime fiction format.  I wish she had dumped the mystery aspect of the book and just written a novel about childhood secrets and adult regrets set in a racially diverse but also divisive Baltimore. 

It entirely possible that these will be the only crime fiction I read for the rest of 2019 but I hope not!  I do have the last Flavia de Luce novel on my TBR (just waiting for the audio to be available from the library) and I really want to tackle The Witch Elm by Tana French which I have checked it out twice and returned unread both times!

13 comments:

  1. Sounds like you read some good mysteries. The Kalahari Typing School For Men is one I'm hoping to read this summer. And I still need to read The Witch Elm, too. :)

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    1. Thanks for the comment Lark! The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books are just a joy to experience. I am sure you will like The Kalahari Typing School For Men if you liked the other books.

      Maybe I will try to read The Witch Elm in Oct/Nov for RIP?

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  2. I had to laugh at "the prompts are just an excuse to read whatever I want!"

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    1. Thanks for the comment jenclair! I am glad I could make you chuckle. :D

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  3. Hi Ruthiella, a good list here. I had heard of the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency but prompted by your post did a little checking and the series is set in Botswana sounds fascinating. I like mysteries set in new places that we don't hear much about. Have yet to read Tana French but her novel In the Woods got alot of attention. I need to branch out a bit more in the mystery genre and thanks for this list which will be a good start.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Kathy! The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency is a really fun series. And the books are so short too. They work as nice books to read in between heavier books.

      I love Tana French but her books are really intense character studies and they are long and a little slow. I'd be interested to hear what you think of In the Woods or any of her other titles. :)

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  4. Sounds like a lot of fun reading--glad to hear Amelia did not disappoint. I really need to resume with that series. Likewise, I need to read more of Josephine Tey.

    Enjoyed reading your reviews of your mystery month.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Jane! I hope to read/listen to all the Amelia Peabody series someday! Only something like more to go...bookish goals. :D

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  5. Hi Ruthiella, I read Tey's book earlier this year and while I enjoyed the book. I didn't think it was one of her best, although it did have a good little twist towards the end. I wonder if my experience with To Love & Be Wise was due to the fact that I'd read a Dorothy Sayers book just prior to that. Sayers is in a class of her own. :)

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    1. Thanks for the comment Carol! I like Tey's novels but I enjoy the more complicated plots of Sayers mysteries on the whole. You are right, Sayers is incomparable! :D

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  6. Yeh, The Big Clock is well-regarded because it can be read as a straight mystery or an existential novel like Simenon was writing at the time. My review of this is at

    https://majoryammerton.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-big-clock.html

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    1. Thanks for the comment Major! I will check out your review. I didn't think of The Big Clock as an existential novel but sure, that makes sense...in particular when thinking of Corporate America.

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    2. Oh-ee-oh. You've checked my review already! In 2017. Go see. Too weird.

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